Court Opinion

ID: 9477766
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 06:30:32.718093+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:46:02.018336
License: Public Domain

HATCHETT, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
I disagree with the majority’s holding regarding the availability of an entrapment defense in this civil tax refund action, and write separately to emphasize that the majority’s decision does not apply to civil forfeiture proceedings.1
In a forfeiture action, the government is allowed under certain circumstances to seize private property. What the government may seize it may also tax. It is axiomatic that neither collateral estoppel nor double jeopardy bars the government from initiating a civil, remedial forfeiture action following an acquittal on related criminal charges. United States v. One Assortment of 89 Firearms, 465 U.S. 354, 104 S.Ct. 1099, 79 L.Ed.2d 361 (1984); One Lot Emerald Cut Stones & One Ring v. United States, 409 U.S. 232, 93 S.Ct. 489, 34 L.Ed.2d 438 (1972); United States v. Fifty Thousand Dollars ($50,000) U.S. Currency, 757 F.2d 103 (6th Cir.1985). This case presents somewhat of an anomaly, however, because Zwak’s acquittal of criminal charges may have been predicated upon the jury’s determination that he was entrapped into committing the subject crimes. Thus, the question becomes whether the principles enunciated in One Assortment of 89 Firearms, a forfeiture case, still govern in this action, notwithstanding Zwak’s assertion of an entrapment defense in the criminal action.2
At issue in One Assortment of 89 Firearms was whether a gun owner’s acquittal of criminal charges involving firearms precluded a subsequent in rem forfeiture proceeding against those same firearms. At his criminal trial, the gun owner, Mulcahey, admitted that he had no license to deal in firearms but contended, as Zwak does, that he had been entrapped into making the illegal firearms transactions. Reasoning that it “need not be concerned whether the jury decided to acquit Mulcahey because he was entrapped into making an illegal sale or whether the jurors were not convinced of his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt for other reasons,” the Court held that the jury’s verdict did not negate the possibility that a preponderance of the evidence might show that Mulcahey had engaged in illegal firearms transactions. One Assortment of 89 Firearms, 465 U.S. at 361-62, 104 S.Ct. at 1104-05. Thus, the Court concluded that Mulcahey’s acquittal on the criminal charges involving the firearms did not preclude a subsequent in rem forfeiture proceeding against the same firearms. One *1186Assortment of 89 Firearms, 465 U.S. at 362, 104 S.Ct. at 1104.
As it relates to Zwak, One Assortment of 89 Firearms is significant for at least one reason. As in Zwak, the gun owner's sole defense in One Assortment of 89 Firearms was that he had been entrapped into making the illegal firearms transactions. Notably, the Court did not intimate that the gun owner’s entrapment defense would preclude an in rem forfeiture proceeding against the firearms. Had this been the case, it seems likely that the Court would have given some indication that the entrapment defense was available in the in rem forfeiture proceeding. Instead, the Court pointed out that the jury’s acquittal of criminal charges could have been for any number of reasons, including entrapment, but that the jury’s reasons were irrelevant for purposes of the in rem forfeiture proceeding.
Accordingly, the decision today that an entrapment defense is available to Zwak in this tax case should be limited to the particular facts of this case. One Assortment of 89 Firearms makes clear that an acquittal of criminal charges does not bar a subsequent civil forfeiture action, even where acquittal of the criminal charges may have been due to the assertion of an entrapment defense. The same reasoning should apply in this tax case.

. In United States v. Russell, 411 U.S. 423, 435, 93 S.Ct. 1637, 1644, 36 L.Ed.2d 366 (1973), the Supreme Court stated that entrapment is a limited defense which is rooted "in the notion that Congress could not have intended criminal punishment for a defendant who has committed all the elements of a prescribed offense but was induced to commit them by the government.” Russell, 411 U.S. at 435, 93 S.Ct. at 1644 (emphasis added). To date, all courts which have addressed the entrapment defense have done so in the context of criminal cases, with some federal courts expressly holding that an entrapment defense is not available in a civil proceeding. See, e.g., Kondrat v. O’Neill, 815 F.2d 78 (6th Cir. 1987) (text in Westlaw); Gucci Shops, Inc. v. Dreyfoos & Associates, Inc., No. 83-709-CIV-ALH (S.D.Fla.1983) (unreported) [available on WESTLAW, 1983 WL 425].

. Assuming that an entrapment defense is available to Zwak in this civil tax refund action, Zwak would first have to establish that he was acquitted of the criminal charges based on an entrapment defense. Zwak’s acquittal on the criminal charges may not be deemed the product of his entrapment defense any more so than the product of jury lenity or the existence of a reasonable doubt as to his guilt. Therefore, to proceed in this civil action upon the basis that Zwak’s acquittal was due to his entrapment defense simply because this was Zwak’s sole defense to the criminal charges is a leap in faith which I am unwilling to take.