Court Opinion

ID: 9552086
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 19:04:35.079967+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:25:37.101108
License: Public Domain

MR. JUSTICE CARRIGAN
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent.
When arrested, the defendant had $1,172.11 in cash in his possession. On December 19, 1974, he pleaded guilty to having forged two checks for a total of $460. He did not contest his obligation to repay that $460 since it constituted the fruits of the criminal episodes under consideration by the court.
The court, however, distributed the entire balance, after deducting the $460, to persons who had allegedly lost money through seven other checks, six of which had been written in 1971. None of these seven checks formed the basis of any civil or criminal action pending before the court and there was no evidence that any of the funds possessed by the defendant when arrested derived from the 1971 checks. The defendant claimed that his wife had given him $700. Nevertheless, the court confiscated all the money the defendant had when arrested and ordered that it be distributed to the victims of the previously forged checks.
In my view the district court had no jurisdiction to order forfeiture and redistribution of the money in excess of the $460 involved in the case before it. Due process not only for the defendant, but for his wife and others who might have claims against the funds, requires an orderly procedure for determining ownership of the money. Even assuming that all the funds derived from crime, there is no justification for repaying the victim of a 1971 crime with money taken from the victim of a 1974 crime.
I am authorized to state that MR. JUSTICE LEE and MR. JUSTICE ERICKSON join in this dissent.