DTF Watch . . . new procedures . . . July 4, 2008
As Circuit Court 2 Judge Robert Dailey continues hearings on how the Delaware County prosecutor has handled drug forfeiture cases — investigating possibility of fraud upon his court — he’s also determined to make forfeiture process adhere to state law, something seemingly not done in the past.
A day after yet a
nother hearing this week, he convened some of the cast of involved characters in a jury room to hear State Board of Accounts district director Bill Vinson tell them what the law requires in forfeiture cases. Vinson is supervisor of a field examiner who testified last week in court that Muncie violates state law in handling cash seized in drug raids as well as violating law in spending some proceeds.
In forfeiture actions filed by a deputy prosecutor, court orders prepared by the prosecutor direct forfeited cash to be placed in a city-controlled Drug Task Force account outside the municipality’s “General Fund.” But state law requires such forfeitures be put in that General Fund to reimburse the city for the law enforcement costs incurred by city police in investigating the case leading to the seizure. It’s a technicality, but one might say that all laws are technicalities.
Muncie’s DTF fund was managed by two officers who headed up DTF, one a county sheriff’s sergeant, the other a city police sergeant. DTf is a joint city-county squad with, for the past decade, about six city police, three county officers, and one Ball State officer assigned to their ranks. In that time, about half a million dollars of seized assets were forfeited by various drug dealers, and DTF spent most on equipment and supply needs. Some money, though, was donated to charities, which doesn’t accord with state law, and large amounts were spent equipping a state-of-the-art exercise room for police in the basement of City Hall. That rankled some taxpayers.
Never did any money find its way into the coffers of the state’s Common School Fund, which state law says should happen with any forfeited money left after law enforcement costs are reimbursed. The Common School Fund is a trust fund from which school systems meeting certain requirements (such as low per capita income resources) can borrow for capital costs at interest rates better than market.
SBA’s Vinson distributed a flow chart he created to show the steps in the drug forfeiture process to attendees, which included the Muncie city controller, attorneys for the city and county, several deputy prosecutors, the city’s police chief and county sheriff. Also on hand was a representative from the state’s Criminal Justice Institute, which administers some state and federal funds used in law enforcement.
The procedure outlined by Vinson would eliminate any special account for forfeited money. Seized assets would be placed in a police evidence room to await criminal prosecution. If a suspect is found not guilty, the defendant’s assets are returned. If convicted, then a civil forfeiture action may be filed by either a deputy prosecutor as part of his or her official duties, or by an attorney appointed by the prosecutor. If the action is won, the cash would be placed in a trust under control of the county clerk. The court also would determine how much law enforcement expenses the city and county racked up in investigating the case, and the county clerk would disburse those amounts to those units of government, to be placed in their General Funds respectively. The court also would determine how much the private attorney, if used, would be paid and the prosecutor’s office would pay that expense. One or more deputy prosecutors in the past have got a whopping 25 percent of the value of forfeitures. The current prosecutor, while chief deputy from about 1996 through 2005, earned nearly $100,000 through forfeitures, and Judge Dailey has questioned the practice.
In addition, as the law permits, law enforcement could continue to use non-cash assets forfeited for three years, at which time the sheriff would auction the assets and funds distributed accordingly.
Whatever’s left over would be sent to the state’s Common School Fund.
Group members, or some subset thereof, will convene again in a couple weeks to refine procedures.
The upshot of the revisions will, I guess, finally follow Indiana law, but one could rightfully have concerns about what we might lose. If anything is even more amok than DTF forfeitures around the state, it’s school capital construction, and we well could end up reducing what we have to spend fighting narcotics crimes to increase the fund from which schools can borrow to build more . . . grand entrances to high schools?
And forfeiture monies can’t be planned and budgeted in advance. You never know what you’re going to seize. So the reimbursements to the city and county General Funds will be unappropriated balances. At some point, the police department, could, say, approach City Council and ask for additional appropriations from these balances to spend on equipment and supplies, but nine council members might eye tens of thousands of unappropriated *extra* money and have their own wish list to fund.
At a time of dwindling resources (Muncie still doesn’t know how much money it will lose yet this year due to property tax reform, nor next year, nor in 2010, when the loss will be maximum), the DTF paid many of its own expenses. I think, in fact, all costs for DTF except salaries and benefits (health care, life insurance, retirement) were paid from drug forfeitures. Absent that money, the police chief, despite pending reductions, will have to now put tens of thousands more into her proposed department budget if she wants to continue a Drug Task Force. So will the sheriff if he continues to participate in DTF.
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