[Congressional Bills 110th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 253 Introduced in House (IH)]
110th CONGRESS
1st Session
H. R. 253
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
January 5, 2007
Ms. Jackson-Lee of Texas 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 2007''.
SEC. 2. FINDINGS; SENSE OF CONGRESS.
(a) 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 (referred to in this Act as the ``Byrne grants
program'') 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 because 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 Department of Justice has inadequately monitored
grants provided under the Byrne grants program. A 2001 General
Accounting Office report found that one-third of the grants did
not contain required monitoring plans. Seventy percent of files
on such grants did not contain required progress reports.
Forty-one percent of such files 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 the Byrne grants program has 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 antidrug task
forces in Texas that receive funds under the Byrne grants
program. Such scandals include 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 grants program 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 arrests 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) Scandals related to the Byrne grants program 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.'' 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 five 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.
(b) Sense of Congress.--It is the sense of Congress that--
(1) grants under the Byrne grants program should be
prohibited for States that do not exercise effective control
over antidrug task forces;
(2) at a minimum, no State that fails to prohibit criminal
convictions based solely on the testimony of a law enforcement
officer or informants should receive a grant under such
program; and
(3) corroborative evidence, such as video or audio tapes,
drugs, and money, should always be required for such criminal
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
505(a) of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 (42
U.S.C. 3755(a)), or any amount from any other law enforcement
assistance program of the Department of Justice, unless the State--
(1) does not fund any antidrug 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 an individual
acting on behalf of a law enforcement officer; and
(B) a law enforcement officer does not participate
in an antidrug 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 such subsection.
SEC. 4. COLLECTION OF DATA.
(a) In General.--A State that receives Federal funds pursuant to
eligibility under section 3(a)(2), with respect to a fiscal year, shall
collect data, for the most recent year for which funds were allocated
to such State, with respect 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
charges were made.
(b) Report.--As a condition of receiving Federal funds pursuant to
section 3(a)(2), a State shall submit to Congress the data collected
under subsection (a) by not later than the date that is 180 days prior
to the date on which such funds are awarded for a fiscal year.
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