Court Opinion

ID: 9617267
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 04:53:55.020784+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:04:07.503588
License: Public Domain

SMITH, Presiding Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent. The Georgia Supreme Court’s decision in Gen. Motors Acceptance Corp. v. State of Ga., 279 Ga. 328 (613 SE2d 641) (2005), of which the trial court was well aware, cannot be extended to apply to the substantially different facts of this case.
OCGA § 16-13-49 (e) (1) (A) provides:
*667A property interest shall not be subject to forfeiture under this Code section if the owner of such interest or interest holder establishes that the owner or interest holder . . . [i]s not legally accountable for the conduct giving rise to its forfeiture, did not consent to it, and did not know and could not reasonably have known of the conduct or that it was likely to occur.
The conclusion that Evelyn Love failed to meet her burden of demonstrating innocent ownership of the property is not clearly erroneous, and we therefore should affirm the judgment of the trial court.
Most importantly, General Motors involved a third-party lien-holder, not the owner of the vehicle. This principle formed the basis for Judge Barnes’s dissent when the case was before this court. Gen. Motors Acceptance Corp. v. State of Ga., 268 Ga. App. 473, 478 (602 SE2d 235) (2004). In its decision, the Supreme Court noted specifically that “[ljienholders have only contractual rights, strictly governed by statute, to exercise remedies upon default, and are subject to legal challenge in the form of wrongful repossession or foreclosure. [Cits.]” 279 Ga. at 331. The court also was careful to distinguish cases involving “family member owners who had prior firsthand knowledge that the forfeited vehicles were involved in illegal drug activity.” Id. at 331-332. The decisions cited by the Supreme Court are State of Ga. v. Tucker, 242 Ga. App. 3 (528 SE2d 523) (2000), and James v. State of Ga., 240 Ga. App. 288 (523 SE2d 354) (1999).
In Tucker, a car dealership was the record owner of the vehicle and a second car dealership had possession of the vehicle when it was loaned out to Tucker, who was arrested for transporting drugs in the vehicle. Both dealerships were owned or managed by Tucker’s father; they frequently passed cars back and forth and loaned them out to Tucker because he was “related to the principals.” (Punctuation omitted.) 242 Ga. App. at 8 (3) (a). A year before the case in question, Tucker had been arrested in another loaner vehicle from one of the dealerships, a forfeiture was instituted, and Tucker’s father claimed “innocent ownership” of that vehicle as well. We held that this claim, after a previous forfeiture claim “for the same type of offense, committed by the same defendant, with another loaner vehicle, from the same interrelated companies now rings hollow.” Id. at 10 (3) (b).
In James, a mother’s car was forfeited after her son was arrested using the car to transport and sell drugs. Apolice officer testified that he had warned her that her son was selling drugs out of her car, asked her to smell the odor of marijuana in the car, and showed her drugs he had seized from the car. The mother denied that the officer had told her anything. We held that this conflict in the testimony was a credibility issue for the trial court to determine. 240 Ga. App. at 289.
*668In Little v. State of Ga., 279 Ga. App. 329 (630 SE2d 903) (2006), the appellants’ son used his father’s pickup truck and mother’s cell phone to make a marijuana sale. He had been arrested two years earlier for possession of marijuana with intent to distribute and had used the truck “during the commission of that crime.” Id. at 329. His father was warned at the time of the earlier arrest that his truck would be subject to seizure if the son was caught again. Both parents testified that they did not know their son had returned to selling marijuana, and that they “loosely restricted” his use of the truck although his use of his mother’s cell phone was “not really restricted.” Id. at 330. The opinion does not indicate that the son was actually living in his parents’ house.
“In a condemnation action, once the State has presented a prima facie case for forfeiture, a claimant asserting that he is an innocent owner of the subject property bears the burden of proving such status by a preponderance of the evidence. [Cit.]” Little, supra, 279 Ga. App. at 330. Analyzing the facts, we held that the State presented evidence that the parents knew of the son’s earlier arrest and that the father knew his truck could be subject to forfeiture, but despite this knowledge allowed their son to use the truck. Most importantly, we concluded that although the parents
testified that they had no reason to know that their son was using or was likely to use the truck and cellular phone to sell drugs, the trial court was not obligated to believe their testimony even if uncontradicted. [Cit.] Thus, the trial court’s ruling that [appellants] failed to prove their innocent-owner status by a preponderance of the evidence was not clearly erroneous. [Cit.] Accordingly, we affirm the trial court’s judgment.
Id. at 331.
The facts of this case more closely resemble Little than General Motors. Most importantly, this is not an absentee, corporate lien-holder but a spouse residing in the same household. The vehicle was a family vehicle, awarded to Evelyn Love in an earlier divorce action, but it was the only vehicle they owned, and Evelyn acknowledged that Randy customarily drove it while Evelyn caught rides with relatives or sometimes with Randy. Evelyn disclaimed any knowledge of Randy’s finances, his work (other than that she thought he worked for a car dealership part time), but he also went to school and took care of her children. She stated that they had separate finances and bank accounts. She denied that she knew of his involvement in drug activity and denied any knowledge of his two previous arrests in 1997 *669for marijuana possession and possession with intent to distribute. But she also acknowledged that she had known Randy since approximately 1992.
Decided September 26, 2006
Berry, Shelnutt, Day & Hoffman, Peter B. Hoffman, for appellant.
J. Gray Conger, District Attorney, Ryan R. Leonard, Douglas L. Breault, Assistant District Attorneys, for appellee.
The investigating officer also testified that Randy told him at his arrest that he sold drugs because he was a college student and had no job. Randy asked the arresting officer if he could call his wife to pick up the car. Police had observed him driving the car on two earlier occasions. The officer testified that based on everything he had learned in investigating the case, there was “a sufficient connection insofar as her knowledge about that vehicle with both of them using it. . . and him stating that he sold drugs for a living.”
Along the lines of our reasoning in Little, the burden is on Evelyn to show that she “did not know and could not reasonably have known of the conduct or that it was likely to occur.” OCGA § 16-13-49 (e) (1) (A). The trial court expressly disbelieved Evelyn’s testimony that she did not know about Randy’s prior drug convictions and that she did not know what he was doing with her car (in contrast to General Motors). While there was no direct testimony that the police saw them together (a fact that the majority emphasized), they had been married for approximately one year, and Evelyn, who had the burden of proof, offered no evidence that they were living apart. In fact, her testimony obviously assumes that they were living together (e.g., she testified that she was at work when Randy was arrested). The trial court concluded that “she lived with the man for a year. I’m not going to sit up here and let you tell me that she didn’t know the man pled guilty to marijuana.”
As in Little, the trial court was not obligated to believe Evelyn’s testimony even to the extent it was uncontradicted. 279 Ga. App. at 331. The trial court’s ruling was not clearly erroneous, based on the fact that Evelyn and Randy were husband and wife, he had previously been convicted of marijuana offenses, and she allowed him to use her car.
For these reasons, I respectfully dissent.
I am authorized to state that Presiding Judge Andrews joins in this dissent.