Opinion ID: 795801
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Applicability of the Test

Text: 36 The district court noted the relevance of the Mathews v. Eldridge test to Krimstock I, but held that the test is inapplicable to vehicles seized as evidence in criminal cases: the test has never been applied to the seizure of property for use as evidence at trial, and I do not see the occasion of applying it here. Rather, the district court held (and defendants contend) that seizure and retention of evidence in pending criminal cases are governed [solely] by the Fourth Amendment and the procedures established specifically to govern criminal matters. However, the Mathews v. Eldridge test has been applied in the criminal context. In United States v. Abuhamra, 389 F.3d 309 (2d Cir.2004), this Court cited the Mathews test in holding that a defendant could not suffer detention pending appeal based on an ex parte showing. Thus United States v. Romano, 825 F.2d 725 (2d Cir.1987), used the Mathews test to assess the required procedures due at sentencing. 9 37 The City and the district attorneys rely on Hines v. Miller for two propositions: that the Supreme Court has stated that it is inappropriate to employ the Mathews balancing test in criminal cases, 318 F.3d 157, 161 (2d Cir.2003) (citing Medina v. California, 505 U.S. 437, 112 S.Ct. 2572, 120 L.Ed.2d 353 (1992)); 10 and that `the proper analytical approach' to deciding whether state criminal procedural rules violate due process is to determine if they `offend[ ] some principle of justice so rooted in the traditions and conscience of our people as to be ranked as fundamental,' 318 F.3d at 161-62 (citing Medina, 505 U.S. at 445, 112 S.Ct. 2572). (Applying this approach, the Hines Court found that [b]oth federal and state precedent have established that a defendant is not entitled as a matter of right to an evidentiary hearing on a motion to withdraw a guilty plea and that therefore the failure to provide such a hearing does not offend a deeply rooted or fundamental principle of justice.) 38 This case law is readily distinguishable. Hines and Medina considered challenges to the process afforded during criminal proceedings themselves. As the Medina Court explained, the Bill of Rights specifies the constitutional guarantees required in criminal proceedings regarding burdens of proof and process due; applying the vaguer notion of due process would be either redundant or inconsistent. Medina, 505 U.S. at 443, 112 S.Ct. 2572 (The Bill of Rights speaks in explicit terms to many aspects of criminal procedure, and the expansion of those constitutional guarantees under the open-ended rubric of the Due Process Clause invites undue interference with both considered legislative judgments and the careful balance that the Constitution strikes between liberty and order.). The present case involves no challenge to an underlying criminal proceeding or the procedural rights due the criminal defendant. Rather, it involves the deprivation of property pending a criminal proceeding; and the challenger may be an innocent owner who is no party to the criminal proceeding. 39 Defendants cite cases recognizing, mostly in dicta, that prosecutors are empowered to retain and preserve evidence for a potential criminal proceeding. See, e.g., United States v. Edwards, 415 U.S. 800, 806, 94 S.Ct. 1234, 39 L.Ed.2d 771 (1974) (When it became apparent that the articles of clothing were evidence of the crime for which Edwards was being held, the police were entitled to take, examine, and preserve them for use as evidence. . . . Indeed, it is difficult to perceive what is unreasonable about the police's examining and holding as evidence those personal effects of the accused that they already have in their lawful custody as the result of a lawful arrest.); United States v. Robinson, 414 U.S. 218, 230, 94 S.Ct. 467, 38 L.Ed.2d 427 (1973) (the interest of the State in the person charged being brought to trial in due course necessarily extends, as well to the preservation of material evidence of his guilt or innocence, as to his custody for the purpose of trial). However, as Krimstock I emphasized, vehicles are of particular importance, and do not bear analogy to clothing or other items of property. A prosecutor's right to retain material evidence necessary for trial does not mean that prosecutors can decide unilaterally that an automobile is material and its retention necessary. 40