Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-97-05313/USCOURTS-caDC-97-05313-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 440
Nature of Suit: Other Civil Rights
Cause of Action: 

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United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued September 8, 1998 Decided November 6, 1998

No. 97-5313

J.S.G. Boggs,

Appellant

v.

Robert E. Rubin, Secretary of the Treasury, et al.,

Appellees

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 93cv01845)

Kent A. Yalowitz argued the cause for appellant. With him

on the briefs were Dennis G. Lyons and Stephen Sacks.

Philip W. Horton entered an appearance.

Scott S. Harris, Assistant U.S. Attorney, argued the cause

for appellees. With him on the brief were Wilma A. Lewis,

U.S. Attorney, and R. Craig Lawrence, Assistant U.S. Attorney.

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Before: Ginsburg, Sentelle and Rogers, Circuit Judges.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge Sentelle.

Separate opinion, concurring in part and dissenting in part,

filed by Circuit Judge Rogers.

Sentelle, Circuit Judge: Appellant J.S.G. Boggs, who

describes himself as an internationally-recognized artist, creates images of currency which he uses in transactions designed to explore the meaning and value of money. He

appeals from a district court grant of summary judgment

ruling that his reproductions of United States currency violate federal counterfeiting statutes, making them contraband

per se and forfeit as a result. Boggs raises three claims of

error before this court. First, he argues that his "Boggs

Bills" are protected by the First Amendment, and that this

case is controlled by the line of cases creating increased preseizure procedural safeguards for expressive materials. Because those safeguards were not observed, he argues, it was

improper for the district court to reach a judgment on the

merits. Second, he argues that the district court erred by

conducting an in camera, ex parte examination of his work

when ruling on cross-motions for summary judgment. Finally, he contends that the court below applied the wrong

standard in determining that the bills are counterfeit. Boggs

argues that these errors require us to order the government

to return his artwork, or grant him an adversarial hearing in

open court. We disagree. The district court correctly stated

and, so far as we can tell from the record before us, correctly

applied the appropriate standards in this case. We affirm for

the reasons stated below.

I. Background

The extensive factual background has been discussed in

detail in Boggs v. Bowron, 842 F. Supp. 542, 544-46 (D.D.C.

1993), aff'd, 67 F.3d 972 (D.C. Cir. 1995) (unpublished table

decision), and Boggs v. Merletti, 987 F. Supp. 1, 3-6 (D.D.C.

1997), and we need not reiterate it here. We supply only the

detail necessary to explain our decision. Art is supposed to

imitate life, but when the subject matter is money, if it

imitates life too closely it becomes counterfeiting. Boggs

creates trompe l'oeil (so lifelike as to fool the eye) images of

U.S. currency with alterations such as substituted names or

pictures, or non-existent denominations, but generally with

the same size, shape, layout and color as legal tender. Boggs

then barters his drawings in return for goods and services.

He has spent thousands of his pictures as currency since he

began this project. No one contends that Boggs intends to

defraud his customers. Boggs explains to the people receiving his bills that he is an artist and that the bills are not real

cash. He then engages them in a discussion on the value of

money and the social and political institutions that underlie

the system of exchange. But the transactions do not end

there. Boggs's ultimate customers come to him to purchase

the entire transaction. Boggs gives them a receipt for the

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goods he purchased, the change he received, and the name of

the person who accepted his "Boggs Bills" as payment. The

buyer goes to the holder of the Boggs Bill and negotiates a

purchase price. Boggs then works with the buyer, putting

together a display including the art work, the receipt and the

change.

Because of the nature of his work, Boggs has drawn the

attention of the counterfeiting investigators of the Secret

Service on many occasions, although he has never been

criminally prosecuted. This case arose because in two separate events, in Cheyenne, Wyoming, in 1991 and Pittsburgh,

Pennsylvania, in 1993, Secret Service agents seized Boggs's

artwork as contraband counterfeit bills violating the requirements of 18 U.S.C. s 474.

In Cheyenne, Secret Service agents were told that Boggs

had tried to buy goods at a local Kmart, explaining that he

wanted to get face value for a $100 Boggs Bill. A Secret

Service agent and the U.S. Attorney for the District of

Wyoming visited his hotel room without a warrant and, after

what Boggs characterized as tense negotiations conducted

under the threat of arrest, fifteen Boggs Bills were taken

from his hotel room. Boggs was never criminally prosecuted.

In Pittsburgh, Boggs planned to proceed on a much grander scale. He conceived and publicized "Project Pittsburgh,"

his plan to spend $1 million in Boggs Bills in the Pittsburgh

area, asking each recipient to pass the bill 5 times before

taking it out of circulation. In November 1992, officials from

the United States Attorney's office and the Secret Service

met and discussed Boggs's plans. The group decided that

Boggs could not be allowed to distribute $1 million in Boggs

Bills. Secret Service agents acting pursuant to warrants

seized more than 1,300 items from Boggs's home and studio.

Boggs requested the return of all of his property, exhausted his administrative remedies and began this action.

II. Proceedings in the District Court

Boggs filed an action in the district court on September 3,

1993, seeking an injunction against prosecution and the return of the Boggs Bills seized in Cheyenne and Pittsburgh.

On December 9, 1993, the district court denied the preliminary injunction and refused to enjoin future prosecution. See

Bowron, 842 F. Supp. at 562-63. The district court also ruled

that 18 U.S.C. ss 474 and 504 are constitutional on their face

and as applied. Boggs filed an interlocutory appeal with this

court on the First Amendment issue, seeking a ruling that the

First Amendment prevented the counterfeiting sections from

applying to his work. In October, 1995, on interlocutory

appeal we upheld the district court's decision that the statute

was constitutional. We affirmed the district court's denial of

injunctive relief and remanded. See Boggs v. Bowron, 67

F.3d 972 (D.C. Cir. 1993) (unpublished table decision).

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Following remand, both parties made cross-motions for

summary judgment. Boggs argued that the warrantless seizure in Cheyenne and the seizure without a prior hearing in

Pittsburgh violated heightened First Amendment procedural

guarantees for presumptively expressive materials, and that

the appropriate remedy was return of the seized goods.

Boggs also argued that the heightened standards previously

applied in obscenity cases, including the right to a pre-seizure

adversarial hearing, should have been applied in this case.

The government argued that the First Amendment's heightened standards do not apply, and that a judicial hearing is not

constitutionally required after the seizure of counterfeit currency. The government also argued that it could not be

required to return the Boggs Bills because they are contraband prohibited by 18 U.S.C. ss 474 and 481.

Boggs moved for a hearing in open court to determine if

the bills were contraband per se and was denied one by the

district court. On October 23, 1997, the district court inspected in camera all of the Boggs Bills seized in Pittsburgh. The

court agreed with the Secret Service that certain bills were

contraband within the meaning of sections 474 and 481 of the

criminal code, and that they could not be returned to Boggs.

The district court therefore granted the government's motion

for summary judgment and dismissed the case with prejudice.

III. Analysis

A.Contraband per se

We need not determine whether the Cheyenne seizure was

legal under the Fourth Amendment because Boggs does not

challenge the premise that if the seized bills violate the

likeness or similitude standards in 18 U.S.C. s 474, they are

contraband per se and cannot be returned. Contraband per

se comprises objects which are inherently unlawful to possess,

regardless of how they are used. As we explain below, the

Boggs Bills in this case fall within that category. The district

court properly noted that "[i]ndividuals have no property

right in contraband materials and contraband materials may

not be returned to them." Merletti, 987 F. Supp. at 10. This

Circuit addressed the issue in United States v. Farrell, 606

F.2d 1341, 1344 (D.C. Cir. 1979):

Decisional law recognizes two kinds of contraband.

Traditional or per se contraband is defined as "objects

the possession of which, without more, constitutes a

crime." One 1958 Plymouth Sedan v. Pennsylvania, 380

U.S. 693, 699, 85 S.Ct. 1246, 1250, 14 L.Ed.2d 170 (1965).

It is well established that a claimant has no right "to

have [per se contraband] returned to him." United

States v. Jeffers, 342 U.S. 48, 54, 72 S.Ct. 93, 96, 96 L.Ed.

59 (1951); Trupiano v. United States, 334 U.S. 699, 710,

68 S.Ct. 1229, 92 L.Ed. 1663 (1948).

We now turn to whether the District Court correctly found

that the Boggs Bills were contraband per se.

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B.First Amendment Considerations

The main thrust of Boggs's argument is not that the

district court erred in its determination that the Boggs Bills

violate the statutory requirements, but rather that the district

court erred in looking at the bills at all. Boggs argues that

special procedures established by the Supreme Court under

the First Amendment protecting books and films in obscenity

cases apply with equal force to his artwork. The Supreme

Court has indeed held law enforcement officers to a higher

standard when presumptively expressive materials are involved because of the risk of prior restraint and censorship.

See, e.g., Fort Wayne Books, Inc. v. Indiana, 489 U.S. 46, 63

(1989) (recognizing the risk of prior restraint); see also

Roaden v. Kentucky, 413 U.S. 496, 501 (1973) (holding that

seizure of expressive materials in some instances requires

additional safeguards); Heller v. New York, 413 U.S. 483,

491-92 (1973); Huffman v. United States, 470 F.2d 386, 392

(D.C. Cir. 1971). Boggs suggests that the Secret Service

should have met more stringent warrant requirements and

that he should have been granted a prior adversarial hearing

before an independent judicial officer. We disagree.

The cases Boggs cites are all obscenity cases, where significant judgment was needed to determine if the seized materials violated community standards. We need not determine

the range of cases to which additional protection would apply.

We simply hold that on the facts before us, they do not. The

important First Amendment concerns advanced by the Supreme Court in the obscenity cases are not present to the

same extent here. Boggs's artwork is designed to look like

money. While some judgment is needed on the part of the

officers charged with enforcing the counterfeiting statutes,

the inquiry is not inherently content-based and thus poses

little risk of acting as a prior restraint on expressive materials.

C.In Camera Examination

Boggs objects to the district court's in camera examination

of the bills when ruling on the motions for summary judgment. He also alleges that there may have been inappropriate ex parte communication between the government and the

district court when the Boggs Bills were submitted. We hold

that he has no right to have the evidence examined in open

court on motions for summary judgment. See Spark v.

Catholic Univ. of Am., 510 F.2d 1277, 1280 (D.C. Cir. 1975)

(district court may "dispense with oral arguments in appropriate circumstances in the interest of judicial economy").

The district court awarded summary judgment in this case in

accordance with Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(c) which states that "[t]he

judgment sought shall be rendered forthwith if the pleadings,

depositions, answers to interrogatories, and admissions on

file, together with the affidavits, if any, show that there is no

genuine issue as to any material fact and that the moving

party is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law." It is

common practice for trial judges to examine not only written

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evidence, but also exhibits when deciding if there is a genuine

issue of material fact. The existence of the specific bills is

not a genuine issue of fact. The district court was applying

the law to the bills before it to determine if they violated the

counterfeiting statutes and were forfeit as contraband. We

find nothing unusual in the district court conducting an in

camera examination of the relevant evidence here. It appears that the district court properly examined the items

submitted to it by the Secret Service, and there is nothing in

either the district court's memorandum opinion or the record

to suggest that it relied on any ex parte communication in

reaching its decision.

Boggs now complains that he cannot tell from the record

what was submitted, but he received notice from the government listing the items submitted. See Defendants' Notice of

In Camera Submission, reprinted in Joint Appendix at 263

(listing the materials being presented to the court). Boggs

was free to request access to the materials at that time. He

did not. He failed to make a timely objection to the submission below, and did not move to supplement the record here

under Fed. R. App. P. 10(e) or otherwise. If there was error,

we hold that it was insignificant and Boggs could have

avoided any ill effect by proper motion below.

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D.Wrong Standard

Finally, we find that Boggs's argument that the district

court applied the wrong standard has no merit. We have

already considered and upheld the district court's constitutional analysis. We now hold that the district court correctly

stated the standard under 18 U.S.C. s 492, which provides in

pertinent part:

All counterfeits of any coins or obligations or other

securities of the United States or of any foreign government, or any articles, devices, and other things made,

possessed, or used in violation of this chapter or of

sections 331-333, 335, 336, 642 or 1720, of this title, or

any material or apparatus used or fitted or intended to

be used, in the making of such counterfeits, articles,

devices or things, found in the possession of any person

without authority from the Secretary of the Treasury or

other proper officer, shall be forfeited to the United

States.

The district court correctly found that the statute prohibits

the possession of bills made or executed after the similitude

of United States obligations. Examining certain of the bills

seized in Pittsburgh, the district court concluded that

all of the items that the Secret Service contends are

contraband are, to this court's satisfaction, reproductions

of genuine currency of the United States or reproductions of genuine foreign currency. Each are in the

likeness and similitude of genuine currency and therefore

in violation of 18 U.S.C. ss 472 or 481. Each reproduction has the general design and appearance of genuine

United States or foreign currency. None of the pieces in

dispute meet the size and coloration exemptions of 18

U.S.C. s 504 and 31 C.F.R. 411.1. This court is therefore compelled to hold that [the disputed items] are

contraband. These items are therefore forfeited to the

United States without the necessity of forfeiture procedures.

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Merletti, 987 F. Supp. at 11. The district court properly

applied the same analysis regarding the bills seized in Cheyenne.

Boggs now asks us to overturn the district court's grant of

summary judgment on the merits. On brief, he opposed the

government's offer to present the Boggs Bills to this court,

only changing his position during oral argument. After oral

argument, he moved to supplement the record, and now asks

that he be allowed to argue the merits of the district court's

determination that the bills violate the counterfeiting statute.

This is simply too late in the appellate process, and we hold

that he has waived any right to our full examination of the

evidence. Rule 28(a)(4) of the Federal Rules of Appellate

Procedure requires that the appellant's argument "contain

'the contentions of the appellant with respect to the issues

presented, and the reasons therefor, with citations to the

authorities, statutes and parts of the record relied on.' " See

Carducci v. Regan, 714 F.2d 171 (D.C. Cir. 1983) (refusing to

determine issue that had not been fully briefed by parties).

If Boggs wished this court to make a full reexamination of the

merits of the grant of summary judgment, it was his duty as

appellant to request that this court do so and present argument on that question. We will not consider at this late stage

an argument that the appellant failed to raise.

IV. Conclusion

We conclude that the district court did not err either in the

procedure it followed or the standard it applied in ruling on

the motions for summary judgment before it and concluding

that the bills it examined were forfeit as contraband. The

judgment of the district court is affirmed.

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Rogers, Circuit Judge, concurring in part and dissenting in

part: The court affirms on de novo review the district court's

grant of summary judgment by concluding that "art" it has

never seen is "so far as we can tell" contraband per se. See

opinion at 2. Boggs should not be too surprised by this

result, as his appeal focused on his First Amendment procedural claim without explicitly contending that his art does not

meet the statutory definition of counterfeit currency. Rather,

he contended that the district court applied the wrong standard in concluding his art was counterfeit under 18 U.S.C.

s 474. But on de novo review, where this court "sits in the

same position as the district court,"1 we cannot truncate

Boggs' contentions as quickly and neatly as the court would

like.

Implicit in Boggs' challenge to the manner in which the

district court reviewed his work and the gloss the court

imposed on 18 U.S.C. s 474 is the assumption that if he does

not prevail on these claims, the question of the legal status of

his bills will remain open for the court. Indeed, the first

paragraph of his argument in his brief cites a decision from

this court noting that we have an obligation to make an

independent examination of the record as a whole in cases

implicating the First Amendment. Appellant's Brief at 15

(citing Liberty Lobby, Inc. v. Rees, 852 F.2d 595, 598 (D.C.

Cir. 1988) (quoting New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S.

254, 284-86 (1964))). In the last paragraph of his brief he

seeks, as an alternative to reversal and prompt return of his

property, further proceedings with respect to the remaining

materials. Id. at 32. Moreover, in its brief the government

relied on the fact that this court must "undertake its own

independent analysis ... of whether the bills in question are

'in the likeness of' or 'after the similitude of' genuine currency

within the meaning of Criminal Code s 474" in maintaining

that whether the district court viewed the bills in camera "is

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1 Stroup v. GSC Serv. Inc., 938 F.2d 20, 22 (2d Cir. 1991);

Bloomington Nat'l Bank v. Telfer, 916 F.2d 1305, 1307 (7th Cir.

1990); T.W. Elec. Serv. Inc. v. Pacific Elec. Contractors Ass'n, 809

F.2d 626, 630 (9th Cir. 1987).

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simply beside the point to the issue presented to this Court."

Appellee's Brief at 12. In response, Boggs contended that

the government has never demonstrated that each of the

seized items is contraband per se. Reply Brief at 2.

Of course, Boggs might have stated his argument more

clearly by explicitly requesting what he sought implicitly, but

his failure to take the formal step of adding a sentence to his

brief seeking a de novo examination by this court of each

seized item does not warrant the dispositive significance

attached to it by the court. The court's rigid insistence on

formality is particularly inappropriate here because in his

complaint filed in the district court Boggs expressly challenged the government's "mistaken" interpretation of s 474,

see Complaint at p 21, and he sought a hearing before the

district court to oppose the government's classification of his

art as contraband. Given that this case involves government

regulation--indeed, confiscation--of expressive materials, and

that art may at times imitate reality,2 this court is obliged on

de novo review of the grant of summary judgment to look at

the Boggs bills to determine if they meet the statutory

criteria for counterfeit currency.3

Without viewing the bills, this court cannot determine for

itself whether the district court correctly applied the law, or

__________

2 Labeling a counterfeit bill "art" will not save it from the

Secret Service's incinerator, but at some point, an artwork's loose

resemblance to currency will not strip it of First Amendment

protection. Cf. Regan v. Time, Inc., 468 U.S. 641 (1984) (invalidating and upholding portions of s 474). Congress struck a balance

between these extremes in s 474, and it falls to this court to

determine whether, in the judgment of Congress, Boggs' art imitates reality too effectively.

3 Our obligation is particularly clear in light of declarations from

an art professor and a museum curator attesting to the artistic

integrity of Boggs' work. A third declaration, from a distinguished

art historian, notes the historical pedigree of Boggs' decision to

create images of money, and reminds us that since as early as 1886,

the sensibilities of American artists and anti-counterfeiting authorities have collided.

even if it applied the correct law. It is not sufficient to rely,

as the court does, see opinion at 8, on the district court's

recitation of the correct statutory standards. Elsewhere in

its opinion, the district court described 18 U.S.C. s 474 as

essentially objective, yet it appears to incorporate a substantial degree of subjectivity.4 In addition, the district court's

findings that a sponge and bow tie are in the "similitude" of

actual currency raise questions about its statutory interpretation that warrant scrutiny on appeal.

Any doubt that reviewing the Boggs bills is appropriate

should have been dispelled by the government's advocacy of

the same result. In its brief, the government invited this

court to review the bills, and it even brought its trove of

confiscated art to the oral argument. Only at oral arguUSCA Case #97-5313 Document #394787 Filed: 11/06/1998 Page 11 of 13
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ment--after Boggs orally moved to supplement the record

and the government saw the possibility of affirmance without

exposing the Boggs bills to further judicial scrutiny--did the

government retreat from its prior position of openness. Indeed, it is somewhat ironic that in an opinion that turns on

the concept of waiver, the court ignores the government's

repeated acceptance of the outcome that the court now deems

Boggs to have foreclosed.

Moreover, reviewing the Boggs bills would not be arduous,

at least not as the court suggests.5 See opinion at 9. If this

court supplements the record, it would be in the same position as the district court, which rendered its decision after

viewing the bills without conducting a hearing and apparently

without relying on extraneous source material. The court's

resolution of appellant's First Amendment claim characterizes

s 474 as requiring relatively objective judgments that a law

enforcement officer can make without need for an adversarial

pre-seizure hearing before a magistrate. See opinion at at 6.

If s 474 is as easy to apply as the court says it is, there

__________

4 No one disputes that Boggs raised a timely challenge to the

district court's interpretation of s 474.

5 Of course, arduousness could hardly be determinative of this

court's responsibility on de novo review.

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should be no difficulty in reviewing the Boggs bills without

further argument from the parties. It may well be that

Boggs focused on procedural claims rather than the merits of

the district court's in camera review to postpone an affirmance that he may perceive as inevitable, but we will not

know until we look.

The court's reliance on Fed. R. App. P. 28(a), see opinion at

9, is therefore insufficient to abrogate its obligation to review

the Boggs bills de novo.6 As this circuit has noted, Rule 28

does not automatically require ignoring issues that a party

fails to present clearly in its brief. Rather, "substantial

public interests" or the need to avoid an "unduly harsh"

result justify relaxing traditional foreclosure principles. Consumers Union v. Federal Power Comm'n, 510 F.2d 656, 662

n.10 (D.C. Cir. 1975). In such cases, a "balancing of considerations of judicial orderliness and efficiency against the need

for the greatest possible accuracy in judicial decisionmaking"

warrants appellate review of ostensibly waived issues. Id. at

662; see also Columbia Gas Transmission Corp. v. FERC,

844 F.2d 879, 880 (D.C. Cir. 1988).

Because this court is unable to review the district court's

interpretation of s 474--which it purports to affirm--without

viewing the Boggs bills, I would grant Boggs' motion to

supplement the record to include the confiscated Boggs bills

and would view the bills in order to determine de novo

whether they fall within the statutory definition of counterfeit

currency. Accordingly, I dissent from Part III(D) of the

court's opinion.7

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6 The court has authority under Fed. R. App. P. 10(e) to

supplement the record "on its own initiative."

7 With respect to Boggs' claim that the district court erred by

viewing the bills ex parte, I concur in the opinion of the court only

to the extent that its relies on Boggs' failure to seek access to the

bills during the district court proceedings. While the district

court's procedure does not result in reversible error, it is impossible

to characterize ex parte receipt of unknown materials not in the

record as "insignificant." I also concur in the court's holding that

in camera review was otherwise appropriate.

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