Court Opinion

ID: 9719262
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 07:46:49.051065+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:05.549652
License: Public Domain

STRINGER,-Justice
(dissenting).
I respectfully dissent. There is no statutory support for the majority’s conclusion that a demand for a judicial determination of the administrative forfeiture converts an administrative forfeiture into a judicial forfeiture where the innocent owner defense is available. The majority trespasses on legislative territory in order to achieve a result it finds more palatable.
The administrative forfeiture and the judicial forfeiture are separate and distinct schemes and remain so even after a demand for a judicial determination has been made. Both the judicial and the administrative forfeiture statutes clearly and unambiguously establish the state’s right to seize property and prescribe the procedure in each type of forfeiture. The statutory language simply does not provide for transformation of an administrative forfeiture into a judicial forfeiture upon a demand for a judicial determination. In fact, the administrative forfeiture statute specifically limits the remedies available to a person who requests a judicial determination:
If the claimant makes a timely demand for judicial determination under this subdivision, .the appropriate agency must conduct the forfeiture under section 609.531, subdivision 6a.
Minn.Stat. § 609.5314, subd. 3(c) (1998) (emphasis added). The statute referenced, Minn.Stat. § 609.531 (1998), discusses forfeitures generally, and subdivision 6a states plainly:
The appropriate agency handling the forfeiture has the benefit of the eviden-tiary presumption of section 609:531⅛, subdivision 1 [the administrative forfeiture statute], but otherwise bears the burden of proving the act or omission giving rise to the forfeiture by clear and convincing evidence * * *.
*168Id. (emphasis added). Likewise, the innocent owner defense found in the judicial forfeiture statute is clearly limited to that statute:
Property is subject to forfeiture under this section only if its owner was privy to the use or intended use * * * or the unlawful use or intended use of the property otherwise occurred with the owner’s knowledge or consent.
Minn.Stat. § 609.5311, subd. 3(d) (1998) (emphasis added). The innocent owner defense is not available in the administrative forfeiture statute and its absence can mean nothing more than the defense was not intended to be available. Neither the administrative forfeiture statute nor the judicial forfeiture statute reference each other, and the majority’s conclusion that in an administrative forfeiture an owner’s demand for a judicial determination converts the proceeding into a judicial forfeiture with all the defenses available is not supported by any legislative authority.1
What is clear is that the legislature has provided two separate and distinct proceedings for the forfeiture of property associated with a controlled substance offense - judicial forfeiture and administrative forfeiture. While both schemes serve the same legislative objective - to deter the commission of controlled substance offenses - the majority chooses to ignore the fact that the statutes materially differ with respect to both scope and procedure.
The sweep of the judicial forfeiture statute is formidable and applies to “[a]ll property, real and personal, that has been used, or is intended for use, or has in any way facilitated” a controlled substances offense - that is, any property having even a remote connection with illegal drug activity. Minn.Stat. § 609.5311, subd. 2. The breadth of the judicial forfeiture statute however is tempered by the requirement that the owner of the property was aware that the property subject to forfeiture was associated with unlawful drug-related activity. See Minn.Stat. § 609.5311, subd. 3(d). Thus any property having even a minimal nexus to activity involving unlawful controlled substance is subject to judicial forfeiture if the scienter requirement of subdivision 3 can be established by the state.
The administrative forfeiture statute, Minn.Stat. § 609.5314, unlike the judicial forfeiture statute, is limited to specific kinds of property and is commenced by the appropriate government agency seizing the property and giving notice of the seizure in accordance with the statute to the owner or others having a possessory interest. The administrative forfeiture statute creates a presumption of forfeitability not found in the judicial forfeiture statute and the items of property listed in the statute as subject to this presumption - money, precious metals, precious stones, conveyance devices, and firearms found in proximity to controlled substances or tools of the drug trafficking trade - are items commonly and directly related to illegal drug activity. See Minn.Stat. § 609.5314, subd. 1(a).
The method of commencing a proceeding and the differing burdens of proof in the two forfeiture statutes further underscores their different purposes. Judicial proceedings are initiated by filing a complaint against the property stating the basis of the forfeiture claim and notice to the owners, with the petitioning agency carrying the burden of proof of each element of the forfeiture. An administrative forfeiture, on the other hand, is commenced by seizure of the property and notice to the claimant. Only if the claimant demands a judicial determination by a complaint asserting a claim of improper seizure is there a right to a hearing at all, and the claimant bears the burden of rebutting the presumption of forfeiture. As noted above, of *169particular interest here is that while a judicial proceeding requires that the owner “was privy to the use or intended use described in subdivision 2, or the unlawful use or intended use of the property otherwise occurred with the owner’s knowledge or consent,” Minn.Stat. § 609.5311, subd. 3(d), neither the administrative procedure itself nor the proceedings for a judicial determination in an administrative proceeding provide such a limitation. Compare Minn.Stat. § 609.5311, subd. 3(d), with Minn.Stat. § 609.5314. While the administrative forfeiture statute may appear harsh, it is the legislature’s determination that it be so and it is not this court’s prerogative to circumvent the plain statutory language.
The majority asserts that because there is no rational reason for the distinctions between the different types of forfeiture, a person whose property is seized in an administrative forfeiture proceeding should be entitled to the innocent owner defense. I disagree. It is clear that with respect to the administrative procedure that the legislature intended to provide a speedy process for the seizure and forfeiture of property found to be directly employed in illegal controlled substance activity.
Critical to the majority’s conclusion is the assertion that administrative forfeiture proceedings were really designed for uncontested forfeitures. Once again there is no support in the plain statutory language for such a conclusion and in reaching it the majority ignores the important distinction in each type of forfeiture as to the nexus of the property seized to the illegal substance activity. It is quite reasonable to assume that the legislature intended the knowledge of the owner to be irrelevant when the property was directly implicated in such activity, and that forfeiture of the owner’s property is the price society is entitled to extract for use of property in illegal drug activity, regardless of the owner’s knowledge, because of the close nexus of the property to the illegal activity. The more indirect the connection between the property and the illegal activity required under the judicial proceeding justifiably raises a greater concern that the property of innocent owners could be unfairly subject to forfeiture. For that reason, the legislature provided for a proceeding judicial in nature with the county bearing the burden of proof as to the elements of forfeiture, including, if raised, that its owner “was privy to the use or intended use * ⅜ * or the unlawful use or intended use of the property otherwise occurred with the owner’s knowledge or consent.” Minn. Stat. § 609.5311, subd. 3(d). Accordingly, there is a solid rationale for the availability of the innocent owner defense in a judicial forfeiture proceeding but not in the administrative forfeiture proceeding.
Finally, turning to the majority’s assertion that our reading of the statutes leads to an absurd and anomalous result because innocent owners would lose their vehicles to forfeiture, no doubt innocent owners might lose their property when it is involved in illegal substance activity. But if it is absurd, the absurdity lies on the doorstep of the legislature, for that is the result the statutory scheme prescribes. We are not legislators. If a legislative scheme leads to a harsh result, the answer is not for this court to re-write the statute, as the majority would do. We have long recognized that “[cjourts have nothing to do with the wisdom or expediency of statutes. The remedy for unwise or inexpedient legislation is political and not judicial.” Hickok v. Margolis, 221 Minn. 480, 485, 22 N.W.2d 850, 852 (1946). Accordingly, it is up to the legislators to make such changes as it deems appropriate.
I would conclude that the district court did not err in holding the defendant vehicle was lawfully forfeited under the administrative forfeiture statute.

. The majority’s assertion that any property subject to administrative forfeiture is also subject to judicial forfeiture is irrelevant. Every armed robbery is also an assault, but the legislature has chosen to treat the narrower conduct quite differently.