JUDGE FREES SMUGGLER AFTER LEARNING OF REWARDS FOR CUSTOMS AGENTS

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- A federal judge freed a convicted Australian drug
smuggler after learning of a government program that paid cash to customs
inspectors for making drug seizures.

In a ruling made public Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker cut more
than two years off the sentence of Michael Sanderson, saying that cash paid
to inspectors amounted to "perverse law enforcement incentives."

Walker's ruling was filed June 29.

Sanderson was arrested in 1996 in San Francisco after two men told customs
agents that Sanderson and another man gave them 17 pounds of cocaine for
transport on a flight from San Francisco to Sydney. The men with the drugs
were detained by customs agents before they boarded the flight at San
Francisco International Airport.

Sanderson stood trial and was convicted in 1997. He faced up to eight years
in prison for the conviction, but Walker sentenced him to time served and
freed him to return to Australia. Eight of the 12 customs agents who
testified for the prosecution at Sanderson's trial received cash rewards
for their work on the case.

The judge did not say that the payments themselves led to Sanderson's
acquittal, but said the fact that the payments were concealed undermined
the defense's case because Sanderson's attorney was not told of the
payments until after the trial ended.

Randolph Dear, Sanderson's attorney, had argued that incentive payments
should be disclosed before trial along with other evidence that might be
used to discredit witness testimony.

Despite Walker's ruling on the Sanderson case, the payment program is still
in place. Last week, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals denied a new
trial for two men convicted in another San Francisco smuggling case where
payments were also made to customs agents.

In reviewing that case, the court ruled that the payment program was "a
system of rewards for legitimate and diversified job performance and not a
down payment for testimony."