Seizure disorder: Seattle's "drug nuisance abatement" program is a menace to law-abiding property owners - Column

Reason, March, 1999 by Michelle Malkin

Etta Mae Franklin is 78 years old. The seventh and eighth decades of her life have not been easy. Her husband, a seaman and sandblaster, was killed on the job. One of her 10 children died of cancer. And three years ago, the city of Seattle came close to taking away her home.

The city had targeted Franklin's modest residence, one block from Garfield High School in a troubled Central District neighborhood, for "abatement," through which the government seizes private property in the name of public safety. Franklin herself was never accused of wrongdoing, but she had a delinquent, live-at-home son suspected of dealing drugs. On January 28, 1995, the Seattle Police Department obtained a search warrant and raided Franklin's home. They found no drugs and made no arrests. On October 13, 1995, the cops got a second search warrant and again made no arrests.

According to the police report, Etta Mae Franklin told the officers "that she did not want to lose her house." She agreed to evict her 41-year-old son, Edmund McNeil, who allegedly had sold drugs to a police informant. But the city proceeded with abatement anyway, and as it closed in on Franklin's home, her lawyer, James Kempton, saw the alarming implications:

"The city seems to wish to penalize Etta Mae Franklin for failing to stop an alleged activity which she is unaware of and over which she would have no control if she were aware. If the Court were to let the City have its way, we could easily resolve the entire drug problem in the Central Area, by telling every homeowner that drug activity is illegal, then abat[ing] their homes if accusations are made by neighbors of frequent pedestrian traffic, etc.

"This is obviously an unconstitutional overreaching by the City in an attempt to deter an alleged drug dealer without arresting him. While the City's petition and supporting affidavits create a lot of suspicion, the obvious answer would be to make an arrest and charge accordingly.... Mrs. Franklin has done everything within her power to see that her home is maintained in a lawful manner."

Franklin's 730-pound son was eventually arrested for drug activity, but no jail would accept him, court records show, "because of his girth." In the meantime, Kempton won a court decision to set aside the abatement of the innocent mother's home. But it came too late to spare Etta Mae Franklin the grief and financial hardship that accompanied her three-year nightmare. Adding insult to outrage, the city billed Franklin for the cost of filing the civil action. Reflecting on the ordeal, Kempton says, "It was just cruel."

Etta Mae Franklin is not the sort of person legislators had in mind when they created the law enforcement tool known as drug nuisance abatement in 1988. At the height of public concern about crack cocaine, the Washington legislature approved a law enabling local governments and private citizens to go to court to condemn property tied to drug activity. During the legislative debate, then - state Sen. Janice Niemi (D-Seattle) identified who the primary targets should be: "Of course, these are crack houses we are talking about, particularly in the city of Seattle."

A model of the law's intended application was the February 1990 closure of a crack house operated by a Cuban gang in Tacoma's Hilltop neighborhood, which resulted in the arrest of 28 members of the infamous Marielitos crime ring. The King County Prosecutor's Office, which handles criminal cases in the unincorporated area outside of Seattle, has used the law sparingly. Almost all of the county's drug nuisance abatements since 1988 have resulted in arrests of property owners involved directly in drug-related activities. One case involved a home located north of Seattle that was under investigation for operating a drug ring and a U.S. Postal Service mail scam; the owners were arrested for multiple heroin sales. Another involved a methamphetamine lab run out of a Kent-area home and investigated by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.

But critics charge that Seattle City Attorney Mark Sidran has applied the abatement law unfairly and inappropriately. The U.S. Department of Justice is reviewing a discrimination complaint filed against the city last summer by the National Black Chamber of Commerce. The main focus of the complaint is minority-owned businesses targeted for closure. But once investigators start digging, it will be hard to ignore the scores of other property owners whose rights may have been trampled in Sidran's war on drugs.

An examination of the city attorney's files raises troubling questions about Sidran's energetic and unscrutinized application of the law - and the willingness of the state Liquor Control Board and the judicial system to support him. I reviewed 28 drug abatement cases that were filed by the city during Sidran's tenure, from 1990 to the present. (Of about 100 total cases brought by Sidran's office, roughly two-thirds were inaccessible because of ongoing investigations or for administrative reasons. Of the remaining 36, eight are archived and could not be obtained in time for this article. I reviewed the remaining 28 at the City Attorney's Office or through the King County Courthouse.)