Opinion ID: 706865
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Due Process And Transfer Of Seized Property From State To

Text: Federal Agencies 29 Although the court concludes that the DEA's adoption of the seized currency did not violate Madewell's due process rights, the question of whether the MSHP defendants violated Madewell's due process rights when they transferred the currency to the DEA is a different question. In United States v. Woodall, 12 F.3d 791 (8th Cir.1993), this court wrote: 30 At oral argument, the government asserted that the adoption procedure, by which local authorities voluntarily delivered the money to DEA, gave the agency jurisdiction to forfeit it under 21 U.S.C. Sec. 881. That may well be true. See United States v. $12,390, 956 F.2d 801, 805 (8th Cir.1992). But it does not answer the question, by what authority under Missouri law and the Constitution did the St. Charles jailers, as bailees of an inmate's money, surrender possession of that money to another sovereign, without notice or other due process to the inmate? That question is not before us. 31 Woodall, 12 F.3d at 794 n. 2. Although that question was not before the court in Woodall, Madewell has attempted to place that question squarely before this court. 32 Madewell argues that MSHP Officer Prine did not have the authority to release Madewell's property to the DEA, because the appellees failed to obtain permission from the state of Missouri to release the property and failed to acknowledge the Lawrence County court order requiring return of the property to Madewell. Madewell first attempts to distinguish the precedent cited by the court below. He argues that United States v. $12,390, 956 F.2d 801, 805 (8th Cir.1992), and Conrod v. Missouri State Highway Patrol, 810 S.W.2d 614 (Mo.Ct.App.1991), cases in which this circuit court of appeals and the Missouri Court of Appeals, respectively, held Missouri state courts did not have jurisdiction to order return of property seized by Missouri law enforcement officials and transferred to the DEA, share two key characteristics: (1) the DEA's acquisition of the seized property pre-dated the criminal defendant's filing of a state court claim for return of the seized property, and (2) there was a judicial determination that the seized property was connected with a drug transaction. Appellant's Brief, pp. 12-13. Madewell asserts that neither characteristic is present here. 11 Madewell asserts that the end result of the summary judgment ruling below has been to allow seizure of Madewell's money without any showing that it was connected to a drug transaction. 12 33 Madewell relies heavily on the decision of the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals in United States v. One 1979 Chevrolet C-20 Van, 924 F.2d 120 (7th Cir.1991) (hereinafter C-20 Van ), for the proposition that [a] local police department may not take seized property and just pass it on as it pleases to the FBI. C-20 Van, 924 F.2d at 122. The court in C-20 Van held that [i]f the federal authorities wanted the van, they were bound to seek a turnover order from the [state] circuit court of the county in which the van was seized. Id. at 123. Madewell points out that the MSHP officials had no turnover order from the Missouri state court for either Greene County, where his truck and currency were seized, or Lawrence County, which had issued his arrest warrant, authorizing MSHP officials to turn over Madewell's property to the DEA. Therefore, Madewell argues, the MSHP defendants violated his due process rights by just handing over his property to the DEA for forfeiture. The defendant/appellees assert that the seized funds were never in the control of the Missouri district court for Lawrence County, because they had been seized in Greene County. 34 We find the law on what process attaches to the transfer of property from state officials to federal officials for the purposes of federal forfeiture somewhat unsettled. Nonetheless, some consistent strands lead us to conclude that there has been no due process violation here. 35 This court has not often encountered questions regarding a conflict between state jurisdiction over seized property and federal adoptive forfeiture of that property. However, in $12,390, this court considered an appeal from the district court's award of money seized from the claimant's home during execution of a state search warrant by local law enforcement officials to the federal government. $12,390, 956 F.2d at 803. In that case, after federal administrative forfeiture proceedings had begun, the claimants filed a motion in state court for return of the property seized during the search, and the state court granted the motion prior to the disposition of the federal forfeiture action in federal court. Id. The claimants argued that the Missouri court acquired exclusive jurisdiction as the result of the seizure of the property pursuant to a state warrant. Id. 13 This court held, however, that no state forfeiture proceeding was ever commenced to establish the exclusive jurisdiction of the Missouri court over the seized property. Id. The court found that [t]he fact that the government had taken possession of the money and initiated the requisite paperwork for administrative forfeiture is determinative in this case, because local authorities had allowed the DEA to adopt the seizure and to institute forfeiture proceedings prior to any action in the Missouri court establishing the jurisdiction of the state court over the money. Id. The court cited Conrod v. Missouri State Highway Patrol, 810 S.W.2d 614 (Mo.Ct.App.1991), as supporting the conclusion that as a matter of law no encroachment on the jurisdiction of the state courts had occurred. Id. By the time the state court ordered return of the money, the particular currency was no longer in state custody. Id. This court concluded that there was no affront to the jurisdiction of the Missouri state court as the result of voluntary transfer to federal authorities of property seized pursuant to a state warrant or as the result of federal forfeiture of the property after the state court ordered return of the property. Id. at 806. The court compared the result in the case before it with that in United States v. $79,123.49 in U.S. Cash and Currency, 830 F.2d 94 (7th Cir.1987), in which the federal district court did not have jurisdiction over the forfeiture proceedings, because forfeiture proceedings had already been instituted in state court, and the state court had therefore acquired primary jurisdiction. Id. at 806 n. 4. 36 The decision in $12,390 therefore stands for at least two propositions. First, seizure of property pursuant to a state warrant does not establish exclusive state jurisdiction over the seized property preventing its voluntary transfer to federal authorities. Accord United States v. Certain Real Property, 986 F.2d 990, 994 (6th Cir.1993); United States v. One 1986 Chevrolet Van, 927 F.2d 39, 44-45 (1st Cir.1991). Second, only a state forfeiture action or comparable in rem proceeding for disposition of the property will preclude federal forfeiture jurisdiction, making a transfer of the property in question to federal control an affront to state court jurisdiction and a violation of a claimant's due process rights. Accord Certain Real Property, 986 F.2d at 993-94. 14 These conclusions require further discussion here. 37 In Scarabin v. Drug Enforcement Admin., 966 F.2d 989 (5th Cir.1992), the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals took issue with the holding of $12,390 that seizure pursuant to a state warrant did not establish the state's exclusive authority over the property making transfer to federal control improper. Scarabin, 966 F.2d at 994. The court in Scarabin found that in the case before it, Louisiana had expressly provide[d] jurisdiction as an integral element of its statutory warrant and seizure scheme. Id. In both $12,390 and the Missouri decision on which it is based, Conrod, however, the courts found that Missouri has no such jurisdictional element to its statutory warrant and seizure scheme, but instead approves of the voluntary turnover of seized property from state or local officials to federal agencies for commencement of forfeiture proceedings. Again, in the case upon which Madewell principally relies, C-20 Van, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals held that Illinois law specifically vested control over property seized in the courts, and therefore concluded that state or local law enforcement agencies could not turn over seized property for federal forfeiture without a turnover order from the court. C-20 Van, 924 F.2d at 122-23; see also Linarez, 2 F.3d at 214 (recognizing C-20 Van to so hold, but not deciding whether transfer in the case before it had been improper, because the issue was raised for the first time on appeal). 38 Although Missouri now has a statute specifically requiring a turnover order from the court before transfer of property to federal control, 15 it did not have such a statute at the time of the events in question here. Contrary to Madewell's assertions, the newly-enacted statute does not just make clear what had already been a requirement of Missouri law embodied in two other statutes enacted prior to 1989. Madewell asserts that the Missouri forfeiture statute, MO.REV.STAT. Sec. 513.607 stands alone as establishing that state agencies obtain a forfeiture order for seized property. 16 That it assuredly does do, but requiring a court order for forfeiture pursuant to state law is a far cry from requiring an order for transfer of seized property to federal control for forfeiture pursuant to federal law. Here no state forfeiture, or CAFA procedure, pursuant to MO.REV.STAT. Sec. 513.607 was ever commenced. 39 Madewell also asserts that MO.REV.STAT. Sec. 542.301 established a turnover order requirement. Although MO.REV.STAT. Sec. 542.301 did, and still does, provide that property which comes into the custody of an officer or of a court as the result of any seizure and which has not been returned to the claimant shall be disposed of by court order upon claim having been made and established, to the person who is entitled to possession, and that such claim shall be made by written motion filed with the court with which a motion to suppress has been, or may be, filed, MO.REV.STAT. Sec. 542.301 (emphasis added), this provision did not prevent voluntary transfer of property from state or local custody to federal custody in either $12,390 or Conrod. 40 MO.REV.STAT. Sec. 542.301 brings us to the second proposition drawn from $12,390 regarding the nature of the state proceeding that establishes the exclusive jurisdiction of the state over seized property. No such proceeding, which would have been pursuant to MO.REV.STAT. Sec. 513.607, was ever commenced in Missouri state court concerning the property at issue here. A motion for return of property pursuant to MO.REV.STAT. Sec. 542.301 is more analogous to a motion for return of property pursuant to Fed.R.Crim.P. 41(e) 17 than to a state forfeiture or other in rem proceeding. A number of federal courts have held, and we agree, that an action pursuant to Fed.R.Crim.P. 41(e) does not deprive the DEA or the federal court of jurisdiction over a civil forfeiture action. Linarez, 2 F.3d at 212 (Rule 41(e) motion is not a substitute or alternative to a forfeiture action); United States v. Price, 914 F.2d 1507, 1508-11 (D.C.Cir.1990) (after claimant had filed a Rule 41(e) motion, he received notice of a federal administrative forfeiture; the trial court entertaining the Rule 41(e) motion ruled that because of the federal administrative forfeiture action, the district court was not the proper forum for determining the claimant's right to return of the seized property, and the court of appeals held that once the government initiates an administrative forfeiture proceeding, the district court entertaining the criminal proceeding cannot resolve the issue of return of the property); see also Certain Real Property, 986 F.2d at 995 (a federal forfeiture action pursuant to 21 U.S.C. Sec. 881 is an in rem action, which is independent of any factually related criminal actions, which are in personam ); One 1986 Chevrolet Van, 927 F.2d at 44-45 (in personam criminal proceeding in state court for return of property does not bar federal in rem forfeiture actions); United States v. Elias, 921 F.2d 870 (9th Cir.1990) (a claimant cannot frustrate a federal forfeiture action by filing motions for return of property pursuant to Fed.R.Crim.P. 41(e)). 18 Similarly, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals found that a North Carolina statute that provided that property seized by a law enforcement officer must be kept 'under the direction of the court or magistrate as long as necessary to assure that the property will be produced at and may be used as evidence at any trial,'  did not bar turn over of seized property to federal control without a court order. Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Bd. of Educ., 902 F.2d at 272 (quoting N.C.Gen.Stat. Sec. 15-11.1(a) (1983)). The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals noted that in the case before it, there had been no state forfeiture action, although in the criminal proceedings, the state court had ordered the local law enforcement officials to return the cash to the claimant. Id. 41 As a final contention, Madewell argues that the logic and reasoning of C-20 Van is that fundamental due process requires that property not be passed from local to federal agencies without a court giving its blessing. What fundamental due process requires, or more specifically, what the Fifth Amendment requires, is that persons not be deprived of property without due process of law. U.S. CONST. amend. V. Adherence to the requirements of 21 U.S.C. Sec. 881 provides the due process protections necessary to ensure that persons are not unconstitutionally deprived of property. 42 Having found nothing in Missouri law establishing a due process requirement of a turnover order before property may be transferred by state authorities to federal authorities, we confront three further issues that need detain us only briefly concerning Madewell's first allegation of error. Madewell asserts that a further due process requirement prior to transfer of seized property to federal control is that there be a judicial determination that the seized property was connected with a drug transaction. We do not find such a requirement stated or suggested in the cases Madewell was attempting to distinguish from his own circumstances. See $12,390, 956 F.2d at 805; Conrod, 810 S.W.2d at 614. We decline to add such a requirement, because that is precisely the determination that must be made in the proceedings pursuant to 21 U.S.C. Sec. 881 before federal forfeiture may be accomplished, and Sec. 881 establishes the process due the claimant in making that determination. 19 43 Finally, we have considerable doubt that even if we had determined that due process requirements for transfer of the seized property to federal control had not been met in this case, Madewell would have been entitled to any relief. The uncontradicted testimony of defendant Prine in the Lawrence County proceedings was that the transfer to federal control was actually made by his supervisor, whom he identified as Lt. Bob Asher, who drew the cashier's checks in favor of the U.S. Marshal Service. The district court in fact found that Prine had turned over the seized property to his superiors at the MSHP and thereafter had no obligation with regard to the seized property. Defendant Asher has never been identified or served in this lawsuit. Therefore, no relief could be granted in Madewell's favor against any of the defendants before the court at the time the district court granted summary judgment in favor of the defendants on Madewell's claim that the transfer violated his due process rights. We therefore reject Madewell's first claim of error.