Court Opinion

ID: 9488699
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 12:53:18.726172+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:53:03.208551
License: Public Domain

BRIGHT, Circuit Judge,
concurring separately.
I concur in the result. I write separately to observe that the double jeopardy analysis in United States v. One Assortment of 89 Firearms, 465 U.S. 354, 104 S.Ct. 1099, 79 L.Ed.2d 361 (1984), seems to be undergoing some change. In Firearms, the Court focused on whether Congress had attached a “civil” or “criminal” label to a particular sanction in determining whether that sanction constituted “punishment.”1 In United States v. Halper, 490 U.S. 435, 446-51, 109 S.Ct. 1892, 1900-04, 104 L.Ed.2d 487 (1989), and Austin v. United States, — U.S. -, ---, 113 S.Ct. 2801, 2805-12, 125 L.Ed.2d 488 (1993), the Court changed its focus to whether the purposes of the statute were deterrence and retribution (i.e. punishment) or were remedial in nature.
The circuits have noticed this modification in analysis. See United States v. Baird, 63 F.3d 1213, 1216 (3d Cir.) (stating recent Supreme Court decisions gave the “no multiple punishments rule” a breadth of effect it had never before enjoyed), petition for cert. filed, 64 U.S.L.W. 3318 (U.S. Oct. 17, 1995) (No. 95-630); United States v. Torres, 28 F.3d 1463, 1464-65 (7th Cir.) (‘When choosing between civil and criminal forfeitures, the prosecutor will have to recall that after Halper, Austin, and Kurth Ranch the nomenclature ‘civil’ does not carry much weight.”), cert. denied, — U.S. -, 115 S.Ct. 669, 130 *1001L.Ed.2d 603 (1994); United States v. $405,089.23 U.S. Currency, 33 F.3d 1210, 1218 (9th Cir.1994), amended on denial of reh’g, 56 F.3d 41 (9th Cir.1995) (concluding that although under Firearms the law was clear that civil forfeitures did not constitute punishment for double jeopardy purposes, the Supreme Court has since “changed its collective mind”), petition for cert. filed, 64 U.S.L.W. 3161 (U.S. Aug. 28, 1995) (No. 95-346).
As the majority holds, dementi’s criminal conviction does not implicate double jeopardy concerns because jeopardy does not attach upon the mere filing of an administrative claim. Thus, we should leave to another day, in a proper case, the appropriate analysis of whether and under what circumstances a civil penalty may constitute punishment for the purpose of double jeopardy analysis.

. Congress has amended 18 U.S.C. § 924(d) since the Supreme Court decided Firearms in 1984. In the 1986 amendments Congress required that certain violations giving rise to the forfeiture be "knowing” and provided for the release of the seized firearms upon acquittal or dismissal of the charges. In Austin, the Court stated that such "innocent owner” defenses "focus the provisions on the culpability of the owner in a way that makes them look more like punishment!.]” - U.S. at---, 113 S.Ct. at 2810-11.