Innocent Poor Become Newest Drug War Casualties

The following commentary by LAFLA staff attorney Susanne Browne ran in the April 1, 2002 Forum section of the Daily Journal.

The 31-year-old war on drugs has consumed billions of dollars toward the eradication of illegal drugs in what can only charitably be called mixed results. And now, sanctioned by the recent 8-0 ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court, the war on drugs will target not only drug dealers and abusers but also innocent, low-income senior citizens.

The case the high court decided was Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) v. Rucker. Perlie Rucker is a 63-year-old grandmother who has lived in public housing since 1985. Residing with her is a grown mentally disabled daughter and her grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Rucker's daughter was arrested for possession of cocaine blocks away from their Oakland housing complex. Rucker previously had warned her daughter not to use drugs, and had routinely searched her room to ensure compliance.

Regardless, the housing authority applied its "one-strike" rule and sued to evict the family. Rucker challenged the one-strike rule, which imposes an absolute obligation on public housing tenants to ensure that members of their household, guests or anybody under their control do not engage in any drug-related activity on or near the premises. Because a violation of this obligation is cause for eviction, Rucker and all public housing tenants are required to know all, see all and control all. They must be omniscient, 24-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week agents of the police.

Under the rule upheld by the Supreme Court, for the innocent poor, mere association, and not any culpable act, confers guilt and punishment by way of eviction.

When Jenna Bush, one of President Bush's 19-year-old twin daughters, was cited last year for possession of alcohol by a minor, no one suggested that he should forfeit his publicly provided housing. Or when Noelle Bush, his niece and the daughter of Governor Jeb Bush, was arrested this year for trying to fill a false prescription, a felony, no eviction proceedings against Florida's first family were contemplated.

Despite pious rhetoric, the upholding of the one-strike rule against those who are poor is not aimed at improving the quality of life for poor families in public housing. Secretary of HUD Mel Martinez said this measure was not about making life miserable for public housing tenants, but safe.

No doubt 72-year-old Willie Lee, another plaintiff in the case, will be safe and happy in the tent he may have to pitch under a freeway overpass because his grandsons were caught smoking a joint in a housing project's parking lot. Like so many other times in the war on drugs, the burden of going after the problem at its most powerful source has been borne by those at the lowest end -- those easiest to catch. What a foolproof way for proponents of the war on drugs to ratchet up their statistics.

This is a shift of responsibility for our society's failure to stem an intractable drug problem. The upholding of this one-strike rule will be self-defeating. Why would any public housing tenant call the police on someone who could claim to be a "guest" and might later be elsewhere and found with drugs? What incentives are there to seek drug treatment for a wayward family member when the price is homelessness? Does anyone think this rule will turn the tide in this war on drugs?

What will happen to Rucker and her family is in no way fair. In upholding the one-strike rule, the court blamed, punished and rendered homeless innocent elderly folks. It represented another step toward demeaning the motto on the Supreme Court building: "Equal Justice Under Law."

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