By Hank Shaw
Capitol Bureau Chief
August 10, 2007 6:00 AM

SACRAMENTO - Stockton may regain its ability to seize and sell vehicles taken from solicitors of prostitutes or drug dealers if the Legislature approves a bill introduced by a Sacramento assemblyman Thursday.

Stockton and 27 other California communities had been impounding or even seizing and selling vehicles taken during "john" stings or drug deals for years, until a Stockton-based court challenge scuttled the local ordinances.

The state Supreme Court ruled last month that local governments did not have the power to seize vehicles; such power is reserved for the state. So Assemblyman Dave Jones, D-Sacramento, announced in front of a hardware store on Stockton Boulevard in Sacramento on Thursday he would author legislation granting seizure authority to local governments.

"We are not going to let you come in here and do your crime without penalty," Jones said. "We're going to take your car, which was an instrument in the crime."

Jones, a lawyer, leads the Assembly Judiciary Committee. He noted that the Supreme Court decision invited a legislative solution because it rejected the local ordinances based on jurisdiction, not merit.

The merits of such laws have not yet been tested, but those such as Stockton's could face another legal challenge: The city's ordinance allowed police to seize and sell vehicles involved in misdemeanor crimes before those cases were settled. This created a situation in which a person accused of soliciting a prostitute could lose a $30,000 vehicle and then be acquitted.
Stockton City Attorney Ren Nosky said that type of situation rarely happened. He said that since the city enacted the ordinance in 2001, police have seized and sold 470 vehicles worth only about $500,000 - only about $1,060 per vehicle.

"It's not a revenue-generating ordinance," Nosky said. "We use it as a deterrent."
The lawsuit challenging Stockton's ordinance was filed by Kendra O'Connell of Stockton, who never had a vehicle seized but as a taxpayer objected to the law because police were enforcing what she considered was a bad law.

Nosky said the city enacted it in 2001 after another court upheld a similar ordinance in Oakland. "We didn't invent it out of thin air," he said. "It was adopted at a time when Stockton was very motivated to clean up its downtown."

Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown helped to enact his city's seizure ordinance, and now that he's attorney general, Brown wants the Supreme Court to hear the Stockton case again; Nosky said Brown asked the city to petition for a rehearing because he wanted to file a "friend of the court" brief on the city's behalf.

Nosky says he's not sure if the court will grant the petition; he'll know in a few weeks.
Nosky said the city will support Jones' bill in the Legislature, which must face a state Senate that is typically hostile to forfeiture bills.

"We're well-aware of that," he said. "We have our eyes open on this."

Details of Jones' bill, AB1724, can be found at www.leginfo.ca.gov.