[Congressional Bills 109th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 2620 Introduced in House (IH)]
109th CONGRESS
1st Session
H. R. 2620
To increase the evidentiary standard required to convict a person for a
drug offense, to require screening of law enforcement officers or
others acting under color of law participating in drug task forces, and
for other purposes.
_______________________________________________________________________
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
May 25, 2005
Ms. Jackson-Lee of Texas (for herself, Mr. Conyers, Mr. Rangel, Mr.
Towns, Mr. Payne, Mr. Wynn, Mr. Cleaver, Mr. Rush, Mr. Lewis of
Georgia, Mr. Davis of Illinois, Ms. Woolsey, Mr. Fattah, Mr. Jefferson,
Ms. Watson, Mr. Jackson of Illinois, and Mr. Owens) introduced the
following bill; which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary
_______________________________________________________________________
A BILL
To increase the evidentiary standard required to convict a person for a
drug offense, to require screening of law enforcement officers or
others acting under color of law participating in drug task forces, and
for other purposes.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the
United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ``No More Tulias: Drug Law Enforcement
Evidentiary Standards Improvement Act of 2005''.
SEC. 2. FINDINGS.
Congress finds the following:
(1) In recent years it has become clear that programs
funded by the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant
program (Byrne Grants) have perpetuated racial disparities,
corruption in law enforcement, and the commission of civil
rights abuses across the country. This is especially the case
when it comes to the program's funding of hundreds of regional
antidrug task forces. The grants for these antidrug task forces
have been dispensed to State governments with very little
Federal oversight and have been prone to misuse and corruption.
(2) Numerous Government Accountability Office reports have
found that the United States Justice Department has
inadequately monitored Byrne discretionary grants. A 2001
General Accounting Office report found that a third of the
grants did not contain required monitoring plans. 70 percent of
grant files did not contain required progress reports. 41
percent did not contain financial reports covering the full
grant period. A 2002 report by the Heritage Foundation reported
that ``there is virtually no evidence'' that Byrne grants have
been successful in reducing crime and that the program lacks
``adequate measures of performance''.
(3) A 2002 report by the American Civil Liberties Union of
Texas identified 17 recent scandals involving Byrne-funded
antidrug task forces in Texas, including cases of the
falsification of Government records, witness tampering,
fabricating evidence, false imprisonment, stealing drugs from
evidence lockers, selling drugs to children, large-scale racial
profiling, sexual harassment, and other abuses of official
capacity. Recent scandals in other States include the misuse of
millions of dollars in Byrne grant money in Kentucky and
Massachusetts, wrongful convictions based on police perjury in
Missouri, and negotiations with drug offenders to drop or lower
their charges in exchange for money or vehicles in Alabama,
Arkansas, Georgia, Massachusetts, New York, Ohio, and
Wisconsin.
(4) The most well-known Byrne-funded task force scandal
occurred in Tulia, Texas, where dozens of African American
residents (totaling over 16 percent of the town's African
American population) were arrested, prosecuted, and sentenced
to decades in prison, based solely on the uncorroborated
testimony of one undercover officer whose background included
past allegations of misconduct, sexual harassment, unpaid
debts, and habitual use of a racial epithet. The undercover
officer was allowed to work alone, and not required to provide
audiotapes, video surveillance, or eyewitnesses to corroborate
his allegations. Despite the lack of physical evidence or
corroboration, the charges were vigorously prosecuted. After
the first few trials resulted in convictions and lengthy
sentences, many defendants accepted plea bargains. Suspicions
regarding the legitimacy of the charges eventually arose after
two of the accused defendants were able to produce convincing
alibi evidence to prove that they were out of State or at work
at the time of the alleged drug purchases. Texas Governor Rick
Perry eventually pardoned the Tulia defendants (after four
years of imprisonment), but these kinds of scandals continue to
plague Byrne grant program spending.
(5) A case arose in a Federal court in Waco, Texas
concerning the wrongful arrest of 28 African Americans out of
4,500 other residents of Hearne, Texas. In November 2000, these
individuals were arrested on charges of possession or
distribution of crack cocaine, and they subsequently filed a
case against the county government. On May 11, 2005, a
magistrate judge found sufficient evidence that a Byrne-funded
anti-drug task force had routinely targeted African Americans
to hold the county liable for the harm suffered by the
plaintiffs. Plaintiffs in that lawsuit alleged that for the
past 15 years, based on the uncorroborated tales of informants,
task force members annually raided the African American
community in eastern Hearne to arrest the residents identified
by the confidential informants, resulting in the arrest and
prosecution of innocent citizens without cause. On the eve of
trial the counties involved in the Hearne task force scandal
settled the case, agreeing to pay financial damages to the
plaintiffs.
(6) Byrne grant-related scandals have grown so prolific
that the Texas legislature has passed several reforms in
response to them, including outlawing racial profiling and
changing Texas law to prohibit drug offense convictions based
solely on the word of an undercover informant. The Criminal
Jurisprudence Committee of the Texas House of Representatives
issued a report in 2004 recommending that all of the State's
federally funded antidrug task forces be abolished because they
are inherently prone to corruption. The Committee reported,
``Continuing to sanction task force operations as stand-alone
law enforcement entities--with widespread authority to operate
at will across multiple jurisdictional lines--should not
continue. The current approach violates practically every sound
principle of police oversight and accountability applicable to
narcotics interdiction.'' Most recently the Texas legislature
passed a law that ends the ability of a narcotics task force to
operate as an entity with no clear accountability. The
legislation transfers authority for multicounty drug task
forces to the Department of Public Safety and channels one-
quarter of asset forfeiture proceeds received by the task
forces to a special fund to support drug abuse prevention
programs, drug treatment and other programs designed to reduce
drug use in the county where the assets are seized.
(7) Texas's ``corroboration'' law was passed thanks to a
coalition of Christian conservatives and civil rights
activists. As one Texas preacher related, requiring
corroboration ``puts a protective hedge around the ninth
commandment, `You shall not bear false witness against your
neighbor.' As long as people bear false witness against their
neighbors, this Biblical law will not be outdated.''
(8) During floor debate, conservative Texas legislators
pointed out that Mosaic law requires corroboration: ``One
witness shall not rise up against a man for any iniquity, or
for any sin, in any sin that he sinneth: at the mouth of two
witnesses, or at the mouth of three witnesses, shall the matter
be established.'' Deuteronomy 19:15. Jesus concurred with the
corroboration rule: ``If thy brother shall trespass against
thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone. . .
. But if he will not hear thee, then take with thee one or two
more, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word
may be established.'' Matthew 18:15-16.
(9) Texas's ``corroboration'' law had an immediate positive
impact. Once prosecutors needed more than just the word of one
person to convict someone of a drug offense they began
scrutinizing law enforcement tactics. This new scrutiny led to
the uncovering of massive corruption and civil rights abuse by
the Dallas police force. In what became known nationally as the
``Sheetrock'' scandal, Dallas police officers and undercover
informants were found to have set up dozens of innocent people,
mostly Mexican immigrants, by planting fake drugs on them
consisting of chalk-like material used in Sheetrock and other
brands of wallboard. The revelations led to the dismissal of
over 40 cases (although some of those arrested were already
deported). In April 2005, a former Dallas narcotics detective
was sentenced to 5 years in prison for his role in the scheme.
Charges against others are pending.
(10) Many regional antidrug task forces receive up to 75
percent of their funding from the Byrne grant program. As such,
the United States Government is accountable for corruption and
civil rights abuses inherent in their operation. It is the
sense of Congress that Byrne grants should be prohibited for
States that do not exercise effective control over these task
forces. At a bare minimum, no State that fails to prohibit
criminal convictions based solely on the testimony of a law
enforcement officer or informants should receive a Byrne grant.
Corroborative evidence (video or audio tape, drugs, and money,
etc.) should always be required for such convictions to be
sustained.
SEC. 3. LIMITATION ON RECEIPT OF BYRNE GRANT FUNDS AND OTHER DEPARTMENT
OF JUSTICE LAW ENFORCEMENT ASSISTANCE.
(a) Limitation.--For any fiscal year, a State shall not receive any
amount that would otherwise be allocated to that State under section
506 of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 (42
U.S.C. 3756), or any amount from any other law enforcement assistance
program of the Department of Justice, unless the State--
(1) does not fund any drug task forces for that fiscal
year; or
(2) has in effect throughout the State laws that ensure--
(A) a person is not convicted of a drug offense
unless the fact that a drug offense was committed, and
the fact that the person committed that offense, are
each supported by evidence other than the eyewitness
testimony of a law enforcement officer or individuals
acting on behalf of law enforcement officers; and
(B) a law enforcement officer does not participate
in a drug task force unless the honesty and integrity
of that officer is evaluated and found to be at an
appropriately high level.
(b) Regulations.--The Attorney General shall prescribe regulations
to carry out subsection (a).
(c) Reallocation.--Amounts not allocated by reason of subsection
(a) shall be reallocated to States not disqualified by failure to
comply with subsection (a).
SEC. 4. COLLECTION OF DATA.
(a) In General.--A State recipient of funds under section 3(a)(2)
shall collect data, for the last year funds were allocated, as to the--
(1) racial distribution of charges made during that year;
(2) nature of the criminal law specified in the charges
made; and
(3) city or law enforcement jurisdiction in which the
charge was made.
(b) Report.--The data collected under subsection (a) shall be
reported to Congress within 180 days prior to the award of funds for
each fiscal year of eligibility to receive grants.
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