Reno Stands By Border Drug Policy

WASHINGTON — Atty. Gen. Janet Reno on Thursday defended sending more than 1,000 drug-smuggling suspects back to Mexico since 1994, contending the evidence in their cases was insufficient to support prosecution.

“We would not want to proceed in a case where the evidence is insufficient to prove somebody guilty beyond and to the exclusion of a reasonable doubt,” Reno said.

The attorney general was responding to a Times report Sunday that during a yearlong crackdown along the Southwest border, hundreds of suspected smugglers were allowed to go free after U.S. authorities caught them with substantial quantities of drugs at California ports of entry.

Contending that the Times report “creates confusion,” Reno told reporters: “What we’re trying to do along the border is to make sure that all drug traffickers are prosecuted.”

Asked how decisions on insufficient evidence could be made within hours of a suspect’s apprehension, as reportedly occurred in many of the cases, Reno replied: “I don’t know the particular cases, but I can tell you that many prosecutors’ offices have screening programs.”

Reno’s chief spokesman, Carl Stern, cited “familiar categories of cases” that make it possible to make speedy decisions. As an example, he mentioned “hubcap” cases in which drugs are found hidden behind wheel ornaments.

“You know you’re not going to make [the case] unless there’s something else” to show the car’s driver knew the drugs were there and intended to smuggle them across the border, Stern said.

On Wednesday, California Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer announced that they will introduce legislation making it easier to hold drivers responsible for any drugs found during vehicle inspections at the border. Gov. Pete Wilson earlier called on GOP leaders to conduct congressional hearings on the handling of smuggling suspects.

On Thursday, Wilson spokesman Sean Walsh said the governor was skeptical of Reno’s assertion that all 1,000 cases were not prosecuted because of insufficient evidence, especially because some suspects were caught with many pounds of narcotics and thousands of pills.

“Insufficient evidence? What is 32,000 Quaalude tablets?” said Walsh. “What the people of California want to know is if these individuals have reentered the state and committed more crimes.”

Since 1994, the U.S. attorney’s office in San Diego has operated a program under which one out of four smuggling suspects were formally excluded from the country, pending an immigration hearing, but not prosecuted. Most of the marijuana cases involved seizures of 50 to 300 pounds, but cocaine, methamphetamine and heroin also were confiscated.

Stern said the exclusion policy applies primarily to first-time drug offenders against whom there is only “weak” or “borderline” evidence. He said the suspects are told that if they are caught smuggling during the next five years, they could be prosecuted for both the original and the subsequent offenses.

Seizure records and court records reviewed by The Times show some suspects had prior convictions and others had been caught more than once, sometimes in the same week.

Because San Diego’s federal jail was overcrowded, some suspects were cited and released at the border, rather than incarcerated, according to interviews and confidential seizure records. In addition, drug agents say the threshold for prosecutions has risen as the number of seizures has climbed.

A top U.S. Customs official in San Diego told The Times earlier that the agency has operated under informal guidelines that call for deferring prosecutions in cases involving less than 125 pounds, or if the defendant is a Mexican citizen and a first-time offender, or if the prosecutor deems it a weak case.

Reno read from a letter sent to her Wednesday by San Diego County Dist. Atty. Paul J. Pfingst, who praised the “cooperative effort” under which his office has prosecuted about 2,000 drug cases referred by the federal government since 1994.

Pfingst said there is no “weight limit” used to accept or reject cases referred to his office for prosecution. “The notion that the only marijuana smuggling cases prosecuted are over 125 pounds is false,” he wrote. “In fact, the average weight is 90.1 pounds, and of the 180 cases currently pending, all but 26 of them involve less than 125 pounds.”

Stern took issue with The Times’ reporting that jail overcrowding contributed to the release of smuggling suspects.

“It’s not a question of limited jail space,” he said. “We cannot find one case where that contributed to exclusion.”

Reza reported from Orange County.