From: [c--i--s] at [clarinet.com] (GREG HENDERSON)
Date: Wed, 24 Feb 93 16:30:11 EST
Newsgroups: clari.news.law.supreme,clari.news.law.drugs,clari.news.issues.civil_rights,clari.local.new_york
Subject: Supreme Court strikes blow to government's drug war

	WASHINGTON (UPI) -- The Supreme Court Wednesday struck a major blow to
the government's war on drugs, ruling that federal agents can no longer
seize drug profits given to a third party who is unaware of their
illegal origin.
	By a 6-3 vote, the court said the government cannot take ownership of
the New Jersey home where Beth Ann Goodwin and her children have lived
since 1982, even though the $216,000 she used to buy the house came from
her boyfriend's drug sales.
	In a splintered ruling, Justice John Paul Stevens wrote for a four-
justice plurality that the government cannot apply a 1978 law allowing
the seizure of illegal drug proceeds to gifts that have been given to
persons who are unaware of any drug connection.
	Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for a two-person concurring opinion,
reached the same conclusion on different grounds.
	Justice Anthony Kennedy, in a dissent joined by Chief Justice William
Rehnquist and Justice Byron White, said the ruling ``leaves the
forfeiture scheme that is the centerpiece of the nation's drug
enforcement laws in quite a mess.''
	Kennedy said the decision will pose ``immense'' practical
difficulties for the Drug Enforcement Administration and other federal
officials, and invites drug dealers to protect illegal profits by 
``giving'' them away to close friends and family.
	``If the government is to drain the criminal's economic power, it
must be able to pierce donative transfers and recapture the property
given in the exchange,'' wrote Kennedy. ``It is serious and surprising
that the plurality today denies the government the right to pursue the
same ownership claims that under traditional and well-settled principles
any other claimant or trust beneficiary or rightful owner could assert
against a possessor who took for no value and who has no title or
interest greater than that of transferor.''
	Goodwin claims the money to buy the house was given to her by her
former boyfriend, Joseph Brenna, and she believed it was legal proceeds
from his boating business.
	The DEA contends the 1982 purchase of the Rumson, N.J., home came
from drug money and that it should be allowed to take the house.
	The couple split up on 1987, and Brenna was indicted in Florida in
1990 on drug trafficking charges.
	After Brenna's indictment, Goodwin testified under a grant of
immunity. The government then ``seized'' her home but had allowed her to
continue living there pending the culmination of the case.
	The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia said the 
``innocent owner'' provision of Congress's drug property seizure law
protects Goodwin, and the high court Wednesday agreed.
	That provision states that ``no property shall be forfeited'' for
action ``committed or omitted without the knowledge or consent of that
owner.''
	The government said the ``innocent owner'' exception should not apply
when the drug money was a gift, whether or not the property owner knew
where the money came from.
	Stevens wrote that Congress intended the seizure law to apply only
when drug profits are knowingly transferred. His opinion was joined by
justices Harry Blackmun, Sandra Day O'Connor and David Souter.
	Scalia's concurring opinion was joined by Justice Clarence Thomas.