Court Opinion

ID: 9701133
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 22:06:50.787001+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:21:19.698378
License: Public Domain

WIEAND, Judge,
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent. Evidence that a 1979 Lincoln Continental was used to deliver sandwiches and coffee1 to a residential dwelling does not subject the vehicle to confiscation and forfeiture. Forfeiture is not required merely because the occupants of the residence had there established a clandestine laboratory for the manufacture of methamphetamine.
*179The legislature, at 35 P.S. § 780-128(a) (1977 & 1984-1985 Supp.), has provided:
(a) The following shall be subject to forfeiture to the Commonwealth and no property right shall exist in them:
(1) All drug paraphernalia, controlled substances or other drugs which have been manufactured, distributed, dispensed, or acquired in violation of this act.
(2) All raw materials, products, and equipment of any kind which are used, or intended for use in manufacturing, compounding, processing, delivering, importing, or exporting any controlled substance or other drug in violation of this act.
(3) All property which is used, or intended for use, as a container for property described in clause (1) or (2) of this subsection.
(4) All conveyances, including aircraft, vehicles, or vessels, which are used or are intended for use, to transport, or in any manner to facilitate the transportation, sale, receipt, possession, or concealment of property described in clause (1) or (2)____
(5) All books, records, and research, including formulas, microfilm, tapes and data which are used, or intended for use, in violation of this act. (emphasis added). The trial court concluded, and the majority agrees, that in
this case the evidence established that the vehicle had been used to facilitate the transportation, sale, receipt, possession or concealment of methamphetamine. I disagree. I am unable to find any evidence that the vehicle was intended to be used for any such purpose. I reject the conclusion that because the vehicle was being used to deliver food and beverages it was being used to facilitate the sale, possession or concealment of a controlled substance.
The delivery of food and beverages, in my judgment, did not bear a direct, causal connection with the possession or manufacture of illegal drugs. The existence of any connection was speculative at best. If it did exist, the relationship between food and the possession of drugs was incidental only. I would conclude that the legislature intended to *180require more than a merely speculative and incidental connection of the type here revealed by the evidence. Otherwise, the forfeiture of vehicles will become a probability whenever the owner is or has been in any way involved in drug abuse. It will then become difficult to imagine any use of a vehicle by a person who is using or selling drugs or who intends to use or sell drugs which will escape the directive to confiscate. If that is what the legislature intended, I believe it would have said so. It would not have required that the vehicle be used to facilitate, i.e., to make easier or less difficult, the sale, possession or concealment of controlled substances or drug paraphernalia. The legislature, in my judgment, required a more direct relationship than that evident in the delivery of food to the home of one who is illegally in possession of a controlled substance.
I would reverse the forfeiture ordered by the trial court. I do not reach or consider whether the forfeiture proceedings in this case were issued “forthwith” after the vehicle had been seized without process.

. Evidence that aspirin and vaseline was also being delivered was ambiguous and, apparently, was not accepted by the hearing court.