Court Opinion

ID: 9486625
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 11:54:36.86263+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:51:50.342722
License: Public Domain

JOHN R. GIBSON, Senior Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I concur in the court’s determination that the preponderance of evidence standard should be utilized in a forfeiture proceeding. I respectfully dissent, however, with the utilization of the instrument of conveyance as the sole criteria for determining the propriety of forfeiture. I do so for the reasons expressed in my dissent in United States v. Bieri, 21 F.3d 811, 818 (8th Cir.1994). Here, the forfeiture issue was tried to the jury under proper instructions, but the extent of the forfeiture was the result of a direction by the court as a matter of law that the entire property be forfeited. The court did so in spite of questions directed by the jury as to whether less than the entire quantity of real estate should be forfeited. The instructions to the jury were preemptive and prevented the jury from determining whether forfeiture of less than all of the property was proper.