Court Opinion

ID: 9462225
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 22:35:28.637817+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:37:28.674173
License: Public Domain

DOYLE, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
I respectfully dissent.
This cause is an offshoot of a criminal prosecution against Eugene L. Smaldone, defendant-appellant, and one Larry A. *1107Merkowitz, both of whom were convicted of conspiring to import cocaine. Our opinion in United States v. Smaldone, 484 F.2d 311 (10th Cir. 1973) contains a statement of the background facts and we need not recount them except to note that Smaldone and Merkowitz each gave to the present claimant $9,250. This had two ostensible purposes and one actual purpose. The former were to purchase as much cocaine as possible on behalf of Smaldone and Merkowitz and, secondly, to smuggle this cocaine into the United States for delivery to Smaldone and Merkowitz. The actual purpose of the purchase of the cocaine was to bring about the arrest and conviction of Smaldone and Merkowitz. In our opinion we noted in respect to the claimant Nocenti “the witness in question was a paid government informant.”
The majority opinion expresses uncertainty as to whether Nocenti acted as an agent of the government. The evidence at the Smaldone-Merkowitz trial clearly establishes that Nocenti journeyed to Peru with the money that is now before us for one purpose and that was to bring back some cocaine so that it would be delivered to Smaldone and Merkowitz and provide evidence against them. It seems clear to this writer that Nocenti was acting on behalf of the United States Government. In fact, a government agent accompanied him on the trip to Peru. He had the assistance of government agents in getting the cocaine into the United States. He readily delivered the remaining funds to the government agents for evidence after he arrived: So then since he was not acting on behalf of Smaldone and Merkowitz he had to be acting on behalf of the government, and his obtaining of this money was certainly not on his own behalf.
The entrapment cases recognize an agency in that they impute the acts of the informant to the government. See, e. g., United States v. Hampton, 507 F.2d 832 (8th Cir. 1974), cert. granted, 420 U.S. 1003, 95 S.Ct. 1445, 43 L.Ed.2d 761 (1975); United States v. Conway, 507 F.2d 1047 (5th Cir. 1975); United States v. Bueno, 447 F.2d 903 (5th Cir. 1971); United States v. Test, 486 F.2d 922 (10th Cir. 1973).
In United States v. Gomez-Rojas, 507 F.2d 1213 (5th Cir. 1975), the Fifth Circuit ruled that the acts of a paid informant, even if acting on his own initiative, are to be imputed to the government. Further, they are to be imputed to the government in a situation in which the paid informer is not acting on his own initiative but is acting at the behest of the government. Courts have sometimes referred to an informer as the government’s agent. See, e. g., United States v. Waddell, 507 F.2d 1226, 1228 (5th Cir. 1975), where the court said: “The law is that Smith, if he was a paid Government informer, could entrap Waddell, even though no Government officer knew of Smith’s actions, because the Government is deemed to have constructive knowledge of such chicanery; the defense of entrapment cannot be defeated because the trapping was perpetrated by a Government surrogate.” See also United States v. West, 511 F.2d 1083 (3rd Cir. 1975), wherein it was said:
This case is unusual in that the uncontradicted evidence shows a confederation of two government agents, one an informer who, according to uncontradicted testimony, actually supplied the narcotics in question and the other an undercover officer who, as prearranged with the informer, bought this contraband from the accused third person whom the informer had persuaded to join with him in a selling venture.
511 F.2d at 1085.
And see United States v. Leon, 487 F.2d 389 (9th Cir. 1973). There the court said:
The practice of the Government in employing agent-informers in narcotics cases is well known. We also know that such agents are usually not trained officers .
*1108487 F.2d at 392, quoting Velarde-Villarreal v. United States, 354 F.2d 9, 13 (9th Cir. 1965).
See also United States v. Hoffa, 385 U.S. 293, 311, 87 S.Ct. 408, 17 L.Ed.2d 374 (1966).
In Jencks Act cases a conversation of a defendant with an informer is not always regarded as a conversation with a government agent for the purpose of determining whether the statement is discoverable under 18 U.S.C. § 3500(e). See, e. g., United States v. Hoffa, 437 F.2d 11 (6th Cir. 1971), cert. denied, 402 U.S. 988, 91 S.Ct. 1664, 29 L.Ed.2d 154 (1971). There are Second Circuit cases which at least state in dictum that a conversation with an informant is a conversation with a government agent for purposes of the Jencks Act. See United States v. Birnbaum, 337 F.2d 490, 497-98 (2d Cir. 1964); United States v. Crisona, 416 F.2d 107, 113 (2d Cir. 1969), cert. denied, 397 U.S. 961, 90 S.Ct. 993, 25 L.Ed.2d 253 (1960) (discussing Birnbaum).
In the present context I find no difficulty in concluding that Nocenti was acting as a government agent for the purpose of purchasing the narcotics and delivering them to Smaldone. As a consequence, the government has a better right than Nocenti even if we were to assess the matter relatively. A further consequence flowing from the fact that he was acting for the government is that he could not have possession of the money for his own benefit.
* * Hi * * *
How this money is to be treated appears to be governed by 28 U.S.C. § 2042, which is a provision dealing with withdrawal of monies deposited in court. The section provides:
No money deposited shall be withdrawn except by order of court. In every case in which the right to withdraw money deposited in court has been adjudicated or is not in dispute and such money has remained so deposited for at least five years unclaimed by the person entitled thereto, such court shall cause such money to be deposited in the Treasury in the name and to the credit of the United States. Any claimant entitled to any such money may, on petition to the court and upon notice to the United States attorney and full proof of the right thereto, obtain an order directing payment to him.
The money ended up in the possession of the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs (BNDD). However, it was ordered to be paid into the court in the course of the proceedings before this court. Being in the nature of an inter-pleader action, it should have been ordered by the district court to be deposited pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1335(a)(2).
Section 2042, supra, requires that one seeking money which is in the possession of the court must fully prove his right thereto. He can succeed only if he establishes independent good title 1 (as distinguished from a lack of title in somebody else or a right in comparison with another). The fact then that the government cannot establish that the money ought to be forfeited does not mean that Nocenti thereby has some semblance of title. It seems clear to us that since Nocenti obtained these funds from Smaldone and Merkowitz for the purpose of buying and smuggling in cocaine, and in view of the fact that this purported conspiracy was a sham and a fraud inasmuch as he was in truth acting for the government, it cannot be said that he was in any sense an agent for Smaldone and Merkowitz. He may have been some manner of bailee, but this does not confer any title on him either. In fact, it is inescapable that Nocenti had no title and acquired none. He had *1109at most possession, but this was as a representative of the United States. He had no independent right; had not a single stick in the so-called bundle of property rights. For this court then to transfer the money to him would aid him in carrying out an invalid conversion of the funds to his own use.
Finally, I see no necessity for hastening to relinquish this sum of money. Let the law take its course pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2042. The deposit in the Treasury of the United States does not act as an escheat. A claimant with title does not lose it thereby.
The really objectionable aspect to me is that the court is lending its aid to one who has no legal right to the award but, more important, the court is going to the assistance of a wrongdoer-a converter.
I submit, therefore, that it would be better to allow the informer to get his compensation in the manner provided by statute, in the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970, which authorizes the Attorney General to pay an informer such sum or sums of money as he may deem appropriate. 21 U.S.C. § 886(a). This court does not have any authority to award compensation to an informer and it should not take it upon itself to do so.
In sum, then, since Nocenti was a representative of the government, whereby he acted for it, his acts were imputed to the government and the government’s right was superior to his.
Secondly, the money should not be given to Nocenti by court decree. It should be held for the true owner or ultimately inherited by the United States Treasury.

. Hansen v. United States, 340 F.2d 142 (8th Cir. 1965); United States for Use of Home Indemnity Co. v. American Employers’ Ins. Co., 192 F.Supp. 873 (D.N.D.1961); cf. United States v. Chapman, 281 F.2d 862 (10th Cir. 1960) (same standard in case of interpleader).