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American Morning

Fighting Crime

Aired May 08, 2003 - 09:16   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


HEIDI COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: A district in Los Angeles is considering an unusual program to combat crime. Officials there are proposing to ban parolees and people on probation from going into one of the city's roughest areas.
But is it constitutional? Here what is some residents thought:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The lower end of the market and you can afford this over here. And I don't want them. I have kids. I don't want them here.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They already pay their debt to society, you know.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COLLINS: David Berger is deputy district attorney for L.A. County. He is our guest this morning in Los Angeles, and Raymond Vasvari is the legal director of the ACLU in Ohio, where a similar program was actually implemented and then overturned by the courts. He joins us from Cleveland this morning.

Good morning to you both.

And, Raymond, I'd like to start with you, if this idea actually keeps the bad guys out of trouble and the area then safer, what's wrong with it?

RAYMOND VASVARI, LEGAL DIR., ACLU OHIO: Well, first of all, we need to remember we are just shifting what you call bad guys from one neighborhood to another, so it may not necessarily be the fix that it's promised to be, but even if it is, our Constitution imposes limits on power of government to restrict people's movement, to restrict people's travel. These men, these women have served their sentences. What's effectively being done is a new sentence lopped on after they served their time.

COLLINS: So, Mr. Berger, can you legally ban people from certain neighborhoods?

DAVID BERGER, DEP. DIST. ATTY, L.A. COUNTY: Well, let me answer that question, directly. I can't. People who can are the judges, and the parole department and the probation department, and let me take issue with something that the ACLU spokesman just said. These people have not paid their debt to society. They get out of jail early, and by getting out of jail early, they are put on probation or their put on parole. They do not have the same rights that you or I have, and they don't have those rights because they have committed crimes, and for that reason they we can impose reasonable restrictions on their rights.

COLLINS: Mr. Vasvari, have they paid their debt to society?

VASVARI: If they are being let out early, there is an argument they are in some sense serving a portion of the sentence on release, but we also have something we call the doctrine of unconstitutional conditions. That is to say that the state can't force somebody to assume, as a condition of a benefit, something that the state couldn't require them to do in any case.

What's more than that, Heidi, this is bad public policy. If we attempt to reintegrate felons into the structure of society, then we can't prevent them from going into the neighborhoods where they can afford housing, where they have relatives, where they can get jobs. Ultimately, this just promotes recidivism.

COLLINS: But the ACLU actually they say this won't hold up in court, why not?

VASVARI: I think there any number of reasons. The first is that it implicates the right to travel. More and more federal circuit courts are recognizing a right to intrastate travel, that is say travel around and within one's community. That's one of the basis on which we got a very similar ordinance in Cincinnati disqualified just this year.

BERGER: Yes, and that was an ordinance that has been, the precedent in that case has been questioned in Thompson V. Ash, as you're aware. It's not as broad a power as you are saying, sir.

And fact of the matter is, the crime statistic in this area overwhelmingly show that this is a place where narcotics offenders and users sellers are gathering.

Now, you may not be aware this. I don't know if you get into real contact with the criminal community, but when are placed on probation, you have a laundry list of things that you can and cannot do. That's what a judge tells probationers they can and cannot do. And one is that they are to stay away from places where users, buyers and sellers of narcotics congregate.

COLLINS: But, Mr. Berger, isn't it possible that drug dealers will go somewhere else?

BERGER: That's absolutely possible. It's my hope they go somewhere else, I hope they get out of Lancaster. My job is to take care of Lancaster. If do I that, then I'm done my job, and then it's up to another jurisdiction.

COLLINS: So is that in theory, "not in my backyard?"

BERGER: Absolutely, Lancaster is a small community, north of Los Angeles. It doesn't have inner-city problems that many of the other cities have, such as Ohio where they had that -- sorry, Cincinnati, and we want to keep this community as a good community, because it is basically a good community. There's just one small part of town which needs our attention, and if we can clean that up, we've going a long way to during or job.

COLLINS: Mr. Vasvari, you have the last word today.

VASVARI: At someone else's expense they are doing their job. Maybe if they clean that part up through better community and police relations, better policing, and better rehabilitation efforts in their own department of corrections, they wouldn't have to take the draconian step of banning people from their own neighborhoods.

COLLINS: All right, Raymond Vasvari is the legal director for the ACLU from Ohio today, and David Berger, deputy district attorney for L.A. County. Thank you very much to you both.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com







Aired May 8, 2003 - 09:16   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
HEIDI COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: A district in Los Angeles is considering an unusual program to combat crime. Officials there are proposing to ban parolees and people on probation from going into one of the city's roughest areas.
But is it constitutional? Here what is some residents thought:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The lower end of the market and you can afford this over here. And I don't want them. I have kids. I don't want them here.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They already pay their debt to society, you know.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COLLINS: David Berger is deputy district attorney for L.A. County. He is our guest this morning in Los Angeles, and Raymond Vasvari is the legal director of the ACLU in Ohio, where a similar program was actually implemented and then overturned by the courts. He joins us from Cleveland this morning.

Good morning to you both.

And, Raymond, I'd like to start with you, if this idea actually keeps the bad guys out of trouble and the area then safer, what's wrong with it?

RAYMOND VASVARI, LEGAL DIR., ACLU OHIO: Well, first of all, we need to remember we are just shifting what you call bad guys from one neighborhood to another, so it may not necessarily be the fix that it's promised to be, but even if it is, our Constitution imposes limits on power of government to restrict people's movement, to restrict people's travel. These men, these women have served their sentences. What's effectively being done is a new sentence lopped on after they served their time.

COLLINS: So, Mr. Berger, can you legally ban people from certain neighborhoods?

DAVID BERGER, DEP. DIST. ATTY, L.A. COUNTY: Well, let me answer that question, directly. I can't. People who can are the judges, and the parole department and the probation department, and let me take issue with something that the ACLU spokesman just said. These people have not paid their debt to society. They get out of jail early, and by getting out of jail early, they are put on probation or their put on parole. They do not have the same rights that you or I have, and they don't have those rights because they have committed crimes, and for that reason they we can impose reasonable restrictions on their rights.

COLLINS: Mr. Vasvari, have they paid their debt to society?

VASVARI: If they are being let out early, there is an argument they are in some sense serving a portion of the sentence on release, but we also have something we call the doctrine of unconstitutional conditions. That is to say that the state can't force somebody to assume, as a condition of a benefit, something that the state couldn't require them to do in any case.

What's more than that, Heidi, this is bad public policy. If we attempt to reintegrate felons into the structure of society, then we can't prevent them from going into the neighborhoods where they can afford housing, where they have relatives, where they can get jobs. Ultimately, this just promotes recidivism.

COLLINS: But the ACLU actually they say this won't hold up in court, why not?

VASVARI: I think there any number of reasons. The first is that it implicates the right to travel. More and more federal circuit courts are recognizing a right to intrastate travel, that is say travel around and within one's community. That's one of the basis on which we got a very similar ordinance in Cincinnati disqualified just this year.

BERGER: Yes, and that was an ordinance that has been, the precedent in that case has been questioned in Thompson V. Ash, as you're aware. It's not as broad a power as you are saying, sir.

And fact of the matter is, the crime statistic in this area overwhelmingly show that this is a place where narcotics offenders and users sellers are gathering.

Now, you may not be aware this. I don't know if you get into real contact with the criminal community, but when are placed on probation, you have a laundry list of things that you can and cannot do. That's what a judge tells probationers they can and cannot do. And one is that they are to stay away from places where users, buyers and sellers of narcotics congregate.

COLLINS: But, Mr. Berger, isn't it possible that drug dealers will go somewhere else?

BERGER: That's absolutely possible. It's my hope they go somewhere else, I hope they get out of Lancaster. My job is to take care of Lancaster. If do I that, then I'm done my job, and then it's up to another jurisdiction.

COLLINS: So is that in theory, "not in my backyard?"

BERGER: Absolutely, Lancaster is a small community, north of Los Angeles. It doesn't have inner-city problems that many of the other cities have, such as Ohio where they had that -- sorry, Cincinnati, and we want to keep this community as a good community, because it is basically a good community. There's just one small part of town which needs our attention, and if we can clean that up, we've going a long way to during or job.

COLLINS: Mr. Vasvari, you have the last word today.

VASVARI: At someone else's expense they are doing their job. Maybe if they clean that part up through better community and police relations, better policing, and better rehabilitation efforts in their own department of corrections, they wouldn't have to take the draconian step of banning people from their own neighborhoods.

COLLINS: All right, Raymond Vasvari is the legal director for the ACLU from Ohio today, and David Berger, deputy district attorney for L.A. County. Thank you very much to you both.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com