Opinion ID: 712236
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Recent Cases Construing Civil Forfeiture as Punishment

Text: 63 In Halper, the government sought civil sanctions against a former medical service manager who had already been criminally charged and convicted for filing sixty-five inflated Medicare claims that each charged $12.00 for what was really a $3.00 procedure. In the civil proceeding, the government sought more than $130,000 under a statute that provided for a $2,000 penalty plus double damages for each violation, and the manager challenged on double jeopardy grounds. The Court rejected the government's argument that double jeopardy could not apply in a civil case. Halper, 490 U.S. at 447, 109 S.Ct. at 1901. It observed that a civil penalty normally construed as remedial could become punitive where the penalty authorized by statute was so extreme and so divorced from the Government's damages and expenses as to constitute punishment. Id. at 442, 109 S.Ct. at 1898. It concluded that in such cases the Double Jeopardy Clause applied to civil penalties that cannot fairly be said solely to serve a remedial purpose, but rather can only be explained as also serving either retributive or deterrent purposes, id. at 448, 109 S.Ct. at 1901, and remanded the case for an accounting of the government's actual damages, id. at 452, 109 S.Ct. at 1903. 64 Austin, although decided on Eighth Amendment grounds, underscored the need to pierce the civil-criminal veil in determining the scope of constitutional protections in forfeiture cases. The owner of a body shop and mobile home pleaded guilty to a charge of selling cocaine, then challenged as an excessive fine the subsequent forfeiture of his house and mobile home pursuant to 21 U.S.C. § 881(a)(4) and (7). The Court conducted a historical review of the purposes behind in rem forfeitures in general and concluded that they have been understood, at least in part, as punishment. Austin, 509 U.S. at ----, 113 S.Ct. at 2810. It then concluded that the specific forfeiture provisions in the case, § 881(a)(4) and (7), were not remedial, id. at ----, 113 S.Ct. at 2811, not  'a reasonable form of liquidated damages,'  id. (quoting One Lot Emerald Cut Stones v. United States, 409 U.S. 232, 237, 93 S.Ct. 489, 493, 34 L.Ed.2d 438 (1972)), and not exempt from Eighth Amendment analysis even if the provisions' aim was in part nonpunitive. Id. The Court then remanded the case for a determination of whether the forfeiture was excessive. Id. 65 Guided primarily by Halper and Austin, the Ninth Circuit held in United States v. $405,089.23 United States Currency, 33 F.3d 1210, 1222 (9th Cir.1994), reh'g denied and modified on other grounds, 56 F.3d 41 (9th Cir.1995), cert. granted, --- U.S. ----, 116 S.Ct. 762, 133 L.Ed.2d 707 (U.S.1996), that the Double Jeopardy Clause barred the forfeiture of property under 18 U.S.C. § 981(a)(1)(A) and 21 U.S.C. § 881(a)(6) where the forfeiture was based on conduct for which the claimants had been previously convicted. In reaching its conclusion, the court held first that the civil and criminal trials, although roughly contemporaneous, were not the same proceeding for double jeopardy purposes, id. at 1216, and then held that § 881(a)(6), the drug proceeds provision which Austin did not address, was as punitive for double jeopardy purposes as the other two forfeiture provisions in § 881. Id. at 1220. The court concluded that the entire forfeiture was a second attempt by the government to exact punishment for the same conduct and was thus barred by the Double Jeopardy Clause. Id. at 1222. 66 The last case on which Mr. May relies is Kurth Ranch. After the Kurths were convicted of growing marijuana on their ranch, the State of Montana sought to collect a $1,000-per-ounce tax on the harvested marijuana, and the Kurths challenged the assessment on double jeopardy grounds. The Supreme Court first cited Halper 's unequivocal statement that labels do not control in a double jeopardy inquiry, Kurth Ranch, --- U.S. at ----, 114 S.Ct. at 1946, and then scrutinized the state tax statute to determine whether it exacted punishment or merely revenue. Id. Based on the high rate of tax in proportion to the value of the taxed items, the tax's deterrent effect, its predication on the commission of a crime, and the fact that, as contraband, the taxed items were never legally owned, the Court concluded that the tax was in fact punitive. Id. at ---- - ----, 114 S.Ct. at 1947-48. As such, it could be imposed during the first prosecution or not at all. Id. at ----, 114 S.Ct. at 1948. 67 In the wake of Kurth Ranch, Judge Easterbrook agreed, in dicta, with the Ninth Circuit's conclusion that civil forfeiture following a criminal trial is a punishment for double jeopardy purposes. 68 [I]f, as Kurth Ranch holds[,] a civil proceeding to collect a monetary penalty for crime counts as an independent jeopardy, it does not require much imagination to see the problem. Civil and criminal proceedings are not only docketed separately but also tried separately, and under the double jeopardy clause separate trials are anathema. 69 United States v. Torres, 28 F.3d 1463, 1465 (7th Cir.), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 115 S.Ct. 669, 130 L.Ed.2d 603 (1994). In short, The United States would do well to seek imprisonment, fines, and forfeiture in one proceeding. Id. at 1464. 70 We are constrained by Halper, Austin, and Kurth Ranch to conclude that forfeiture under § 881(a)(7) constitutes punishment as far as Mr. May is concerned. Austin makes it clear that forfeitures under § 881(a)(7) are punishment, and we agree with the Ninth Circuit that there is no difference between the excessive fines and the double jeopardy definition of punishment. $405,089.23 United States Currency, 33 F.3d at 1219. Finally, since Halper and Kurth Ranch make it clear that the Double Jeopardy Clause brooks no distinction between civil and criminal punishments (as opposed to remedial penalties), we must conclude that double jeopardy concepts apply to the forfeiture of Mr. May's interest in his house and business property.