Case Title: State v. Jacob L.

Citation: 

Docket Number: 2017 ME 112

State: maine

Court: Maine Supreme Court

Date: 2017-06-06T00:00:00Z

Document:
MAINE SUPREME JUDICIAL COURT 
Reporter of Decisions 
Decision: 
2017 ME 112 
Docket: 
Pen-16-395 
Argued: 
April 13, 2017 
Decided: 
June 6, 2017 
 
Panel: 
SAUFLEY, C.J., and ALEXANDER, MEAD, GORMAN, JABAR, HJELM, and HUMPHREY, JJ. 
 
 
STATE OF MAINE 
 
v. 
 
JACOB L. 
 
 
HJELM, J. 
[¶1]  Jacob L. appeals from an order denying his motion for return of 
property, see M.R.U. Crim. P. 41(j),1 entered after a hearing in the Juvenile 
Court2 (Bangor, Lucy, J.), following entry of a judgment adjudicating him of the 
juvenile crime of aggravated assault (Class B), 17-A M.R.S. § 208(1)(B) (2016); 
see also 15 M.R.S. § 3103(1) (2016) (defining “juvenile crime”).  Jacob argues 
that the court applied an incorrect legal standard when it determined that the 
State was entitled to retain possession of cash that had been seized from him 
as evidence against a co-defendant, and that the court’s findings were not 
                                         
1  The Maine Rules of Unified Criminal Procedure apply to juvenile crime proceedings.  See 
15 M.R.S. § 3309 (2016); M.R.U. Crim. P. 1(b)(3).   
2  When exercising its exclusive original jurisdiction over juvenile petitions, the District Court is 
referred to as the Juvenile Court.  See 15 M.R.S. § 3101(1), 2(A) (2016).   
 
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supported by sufficient evidence.  Because the court has not yet issued an 
order determining who owns or is otherwise entitled to possession of the 
cash, we dismiss this appeal as interlocutory. 
I.  BACKGROUND 
[¶2]  The central facts are undisputed, either as established in the 
record or as the parties have framed their arguments. 
[¶3]  In the early morning hours of March 25, 2016, a Bangor police 
officer responded to the scene of a reported robbery and assault.  The victim 
told the officer that two males had beaten him with a two-by-four and had 
taken about $800 in cash from his pocket, along with some other items.  
[¶4]  Based on physical descriptions provided by the victim and his 
girlfriend, other officers detained two suspects, including Jacob, at a nearby 
convenience store.  The girlfriend identified the suspects as the attackers, and 
the officers then arrested Jacob on several outstanding warrants.  They also 
arrested the other suspect.  One of the arresting officers searched Jacob for 
weapons and found a large roll of money in his pocket.  At the police station 
the officer counted the money and found that there was $1,310, which was 
retained as evidence.  The victim later told the police that the amount of stolen 
cash totaled $1,300 rather than the $800 he had reported initially.    
 
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[¶5]  On March 31, 2016, Jacob was charged by petition with the 
juvenile crimes of robbery (Class A), 17-A M.R.S. § 651(1)(D) (2016); 
aggravated assault (Class B), 17-A M.R.S. § 208(1)(B); and theft by 
unauthorized taking or transfer (Class D), 17-A M.R.S. § 353(1)(B)(5) (2016).  
At a hearing on April 26, Jacob entered an admission to the juvenile crime of 
aggravated assault, and the State dismissed the remaining charges.  The court 
committed Jacob to a juvenile detention facility for an indeterminate period to 
age twenty.  See 15 M.R.S. §§ 3310(5), 3314(1)(F) (2016). 
[¶6]  Pursuant to M.R.U. Crim. P. 41(j),3 Jacob filed a post-judgment 
motion for return of property—namely, the cash seized from him when he 
was arrested—asserting that the State’s continued retention of the cash was 
illegal.  The State opposed the motion, and a hearing was held on August 2, 
2016.  The evidence presented at the hearing consisted only of the police 
reports that had been filed in support of the juvenile petition.  
                                         
3  Rule 41(j) of the Maine Rules of Unified Criminal Procedure states,  
A person aggrieved by an unlawful seizure of property may file a motion in the 
Unified Criminal Docket for the return of the property on the ground that it was 
illegally seized.  The court shall receive evidence on any issue of fact necessary to 
the decision of the motion.  If the motion is granted the court shall order that the 
property be restored unless otherwise subject to lawful detention.  The motion may 
be joined with a motion to suppress evidence. 
 
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[¶7]  At the conclusion of the hearing, the court denied Jacob’s motion.  
The court found that the State was entitled to retain the cash because there 
was “probable cause to believe that [Jacob and his co-defendant] beat up [the 
victim] and took his money[,] [a]nd that the money that the State [was] 
holding represent[ed] some or all of what was taken from [the victim] after 
[Jacob] hit him with a two-by-four.”  The court further explained that charges 
were still pending against Jacob’s co-defendant and that evidence in his trial 
would “further inform this issue.”  
[¶8]  After the court announced its decision, Jacob asked whether he 
would be permitted to file a renewed motion for return of property after the 
case against the co-defendant was concluded.  The court responded that it 
would not give an advisory opinion about “whatever may or may not happen 
in the future,” and restated its determination that the State was entitled to 
retain the cash.  The court further stated, “There may be other recourse 
through civil process . . . , but . . . as it stands now there’s nothing else for me to 
do on this case.”  
[¶9]  Jacob timely appealed.  At oral argument, both parties told us that 
after the court issued its order denying Jacob’s motion, the case against the 
co-defendant was fully resolved and is no longer pending.  The State also 
 
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acknowledged that given this development, the cash seized from Jacob has no 
remaining evidentiary value.  
II.  DISCUSSION 
[¶10]  We must address, as a threshold issue, whether we have 
jurisdiction to consider an appeal from an order denying a motion for return 
of property in a juvenile crime proceeding.  See M.R. App. P. 4(d) (“Whenever 
it appears by suggestion of the parties or otherwise that the Law Court lacks 
jurisdiction of the subject matter, the Law Court shall dismiss the appeal.”). 
[¶11]  As the parties acknowledge, the types of orders that a juvenile 
may appeal are statutorily enumerated as orders of adjudication, disposition, 
and detention.  See 15 M.R.S. § 3402(1) (2016).  The order denying Jacob’s 
Rule 41(j) motion is none of these.4  See 15 M.R.S. § 3003(1), (4-B), (5) (2016) 
(defining 
“[a]djudicatory 
hearing,” 
“[d]ispositional 
hearing,” 
and 
“[d]etention”).  If we have appellate jurisdiction over this matter, it must 
therefore arise from a different source. 
                                         
4  Contrary to Jacob’s argument, the order denying his Rule 41(j) motion is not a de facto order of 
restitution, which would be appealable pursuant to 15 M.R.S. § 3402(1)(B) (2016), because neither 
the dispositional order nor the order on Jacob’s Rule 41(j) motion directs that the cash be paid over 
to the victim.  See 15 M.R.S. § 3314(1)(E) (2016) (stating that, as one of the dispositional 
alternatives available in a juvenile case, “[t]he court may require the juvenile to make restitution for 
any damage to the victim or other authorized claimant as compensation for economic loss”).  
Rather, the court simply determined that the State was entitled to hold the cash temporarily while 
the prosecution against Jacob’s co-defendant was pending.   
 
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[¶12]  Adult criminal defendants are entitled to appeal from an adverse 
ruling on a Rule 41(j) motion.  See State v. Miller, 645 A.2d 1140, 1141 
(Me. 1994);5 see also 15 M.R.S. § 2111(1) (2016) (“[I]n any criminal 
proceeding in the District Court, a defendant aggrieved by a judgment of 
conviction, ruling or order may appeal to the Supreme Judicial Court sitting as 
the Law Court.”).  We recognize that a juvenile adjudicated to have committed 
a juvenile crime is not viewed as “a defendant aggrieved by a judgment of 
conviction,” 15 M.R.S. § 2111(1); see also 15 M.R.S. § 3310(6) (2016) (“An 
adjudication of the commission of a juvenile crime shall not be deemed a 
conviction of a crime.”).  Nonetheless, the Juvenile Code expressly states that 
one of the “goals of the juvenile appellate structure” is to assure “substantial 
uniformity of treatment to persons in like situations,” 15 M.R.S. § 3401(2)(B) 
(2016), and that the Code’s provisions “shall be liberally construed,” 15 M.R.S. 
§ 3002(2) (2016).  Indeed, the Juvenile Code and the Maine Rules of Unified 
Criminal Procedure themselves make the Rules applicable to juvenile 
proceedings.  See supra n.1.  This enables juveniles to seek the return of 
property pursuant to Rule 41(j), just as adult criminal defendants are entitled 
                                         
5  In State v. Miller, 645 A.2d 1140, 1141 (Me. 1994), we referenced M.R. Crim. P. 41(e), which 
was an earlier formulation of the present M.R.U. Crim. P. 41(j).  See M.R.U. Crim. P. 41, Advisory 
Committee’s Note to 2013 amend. 
 
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to do.  We therefore conclude that section 2111(1) supports the existence of 
appellate jurisdiction from a ruling on a Rule 41(j) motion in this juvenile case 
to the same extent that adult defendants are entitled to seek appellate relief.  
[¶13]  Although we conclude that Jacob has a right to appeal, we do not 
reach his substantive challenges to the court’s denial of his Rule 41(j) motion 
because the order is not a final judgment.  See Bank of N.Y. v. Richardson, 
2011 ME 38, ¶ 7, 15 A.3d 756 (“Whether or not a party has argued the issue, 
we consider sua sponte whether a matter is properly before us on appeal from 
a final judgment.”). 
[¶14]  “It is well settled that appeals, in order to be cognizable, must be 
from a final judgment.”  State v. Lemay, 611 A.2d 67, 68 (Me. 1992).  
Interlocutory orders that do not fully dispose of the entire matter pending in 
the trial court are appealable only in narrowly-defined circumstances that are 
not present here.  See State v. Black, 2014 ME 55, ¶ 8, 90 A.3d 448; Alexander, 
Maine Appellate Practice § 301 at 218-19, 226-33 (4th ed. 2013).   
[¶15]  The court denied Jacob’s motion for return of property based on 
its determination that there was probable cause to believe that the seized cash 
was stolen and that the State was therefore entitled to retain it as evidence in 
the then-pending case against Jacob’s co-defendant.  See Amerisource Corp. v. 
 
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United States, 525 F.3d 1149, 1153 (Fed. Cir. 2008) (stating, in a case rejecting 
the plaintiff’s claim pursuant to the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment, 
that “the police power encompasses the government’s ability to seize and 
retain property to be used as evidence in a criminal prosecution”); see also 
State v. Sweatt, 427 A.2d 940, 950-51 (Me. 1981) (stating that the State may 
properly retain seized property if there is probable cause to believe that it is 
stolen or that it is “evidence of a crime”).  The order, however, is interlocutory. 
[¶16]  When the court denied Jacob’s Rule 41(j) motion, the 
co-defendant’s case was still pending, and the court noted that given that 
circumstance there was “nothing else for [it] to do.”  The court accordingly did 
not decide the ultimate question of who owned the cash.  Because the 
co-defendant’s case is no longer pending, however, the justification for the 
State to possess the cash—and the court’s rationale for denying Jacob’s 
motion—no longer exists.  As a result, the court’s order does not serve as a 
final disposition of the issue directly raised in Jacob’s motion.  See Lemay, 
611 A.2d at 68.   
[¶17]  “The general rule is that seized property, other than contraband, 
should be returned to its rightful owner once the criminal proceedings have 
terminated.”  United States v. LaFatch, 565 F.2d 81, 83 (6th Cir. 1977).  No 
 
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adjudication of “the rightful owner” has yet occurred.  See id.  Because—as it 
acknowledged at oral argument—the State no longer has a possessory 
interest in the cash, and because the court stopped short of determining 
whether Jacob is entitled to possession of the cash, we must remand the 
matter for a full determination of the issues pending before it.  See Lemay, 
611 A.2d at 68.  We therefore dismiss the appeal as interlocutory and remand 
to the trial court for further proceedings.6 
The entry is: 
Appeal dismissed.  Remanded for further 
proceedings consistent with this opinion.  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Benjamin Fowler, Esq. (orally), Bangor, for appellant Jacob L. 
 
R. Christopher Almy, District Attorney, Tracy Collins, Asst. Dist. Atty., and 
Mark A. Rucci, Asst. Dist. Atty. (orally), Prosecutorial District V, Bangor, for 
appellee State of Maine 
 
 
Bangor Juvenile Court docket number JV-2016-23 
FOR CLERK REFERENCE ONLY 
                                         
6  To the extent that the victim is asserting an ownership or possessory interest in some or all of 
the cash, the court will have an opportunity on remand to provide some avenue—through the State 
or by some other means—by which the victim will have an opportunity to be heard.