Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/524bv.pdf
Page Number: 377

524US2

Unit: $U89

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UNITED STATES v. BAJAKAJIAN

Opinion of the Court

ment has not proceeded against the currency itself, but has
instead sought and obtained a criminal conviction of respond-
ent personally. The forfeiture serves no remedial purpose,
is designed to punish the offender, and cannot be imposed
upon innocent owners.

Section 982(a)(1) thus descends not from historic in rem
forfeitures of guilty property, but from a different historical
tradition: that of in personam, criminal forfeitures. Such
forfeitures have historically been treated as punitive, being
part of the punishment imposed for felonies and treason in
the Middle Ages and at common law. See W. McKechnie,
Magna Carta 337–339 (2d ed. 1958); 2 F. Pollock & F. Mait-
land, The History of English Law 460–466 (2d ed. 1909). Al-
though in personam criminal forfeitures were well estab-
lished in England at the time of the founding, they were
rejected altogether in the laws of this country until very
recently.7

7 The First Congress explicitly rejected in personam forfeitures as pun-
ishments for federal crimes, see Act of Apr. 30, 1790, ch. 9, § 24, 1 Stat.
117 (“[N]o conviction or judgment . . . shall work corruption of blood, or
any forfeiture of estate”), and Congress reenacted this ban several times
over the course of two centuries. See Rev. Stat. § 5326 (1875); Act of Mar.
4, 1909, ch. 321, § 341, 35 Stat. 1159; Act of June 25, 1948, ch. 645, § 3563,
62 Stat. 837, codiﬁed at 18 U. S. C. § 3563 (1982 ed.); repealed effective
Nov. 1, 1987, Pub. L. 98–473, 98 Stat. 1987.

It was only in 1970 that Congress resurrected the English common law
of punitive forfeiture to combat organized crime and major drug trafﬁck-
ing. See Organized Crime Control Act of 1970, 18 U. S. C. § 1963, and
Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970, 21
U. S. C. § 848(a).
In providing for this mode of punishment, which had
long been unused in this country, the Senate Judiciary Committee ac-
knowledged that “criminal forfeiture . . . represents an innovative attempt
to call on our common law heritage to meet an essentially modern prob-
lem.” S. Rep. No. 91–617, p. 79 (1969).
Indeed, it was not until 1992 that
Congress provided for the criminal forfeiture of currency at issue here.
See 18 U. S. C. § 982(a).