GOVERNOR SIGNS 'AL CAPONE' BILL

Barbour Talks to Crime Victims' Advocates

JACKSON - Gov.  Haley Barbour has signed the so-called "Al Capone" bill, giving authorities a new tool to nab big-time drug dealers.

Starting July 1, prosecutors can use tax-evasion laws to build cases against drug kingpins - just as federal prosecutors did decades ago against gangster Capone.

The bill was sponsored by Rep.  Cecil Brown, D-Jackson, a certified public accountant.

"It took a CPA over here to figure out an angle to fight the top-level drug dealers," Attorney General Jim Hood said Tuesday.

Hood says he plans to work with the Tax Commission and the Bureau of Narcotics to go after people believed to be financing the illegal drug trade in Mississippi.

Republican Barbour and Democrat Hood spoke Tuesday at a crime victims' rally at the Capitol.

Barbour announced that a state crime victims' compensation fund is being moved to the attorney general's office.  The fund has been administered by the state Department of Finance and Administration.

Hood said he was going to establish a separate victims' advocacy group in his office, but he didn't want to duplicate efforts.  Barbour, who appoints the DFA director, said he was happy to move the victims' fund to the attorney general's office.

At the rally, Hood presented a survivors' advocate award to Carolyn Clayton of Tupelo, whose daughter was slain in 1986.  Clayton founded and for 12 years ran Survivors Inc., a private group that helps relatives of crime victims as cases work through the court system.

Barbour said one of his goals is for the state to reduce the number of serious crimes over the next 31/2 years.

The bill is House Bill 611.