Court Opinion

ID: 9488393
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 12:43:51.827041+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:52:51.538685
License: Public Domain

KLEINFELD, Circuit Judge,
concurring:
I concur in the reasoning and the result reached by the majority, except for one detail. I would not reach the issue of whether, under Simmons v. United States, 390 U.S. 377, 88 S.Ct. 967, 19 L.Ed.2d 1247 (1968), a claim of ownership in a civil forfeiture proceeding can be used against the claimant in a subsequent criminal proceeding. Abandonment of property, like a gift, relinquishes title. Fidelity-Philadelphia Trust Co. v. Lehigh Valley Coal Co., 294 Pa. 47, 143 A. 474 (1928). Property valued by the true owner is frequently abandoned because that value is exceeded by some cost associated with retaining the property, as when a fishing vessel sinks off the Aleutians, or a diamond ring falls into a crevasse. That the relinquishment may result from a calculation that the penal risk of a claim exceeds the value of the property does not, to my mind, implicate the Fifth Amendment. The property is abandoned regardless. The majority’s reasoning is persuasive to me without the Simmons reasoning.