Court Opinion

ID: 9477087
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 06:13:21.763256+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:45:40.875447
License: Public Domain

OAKES, Circuit Judge, dissenting:
I agree that the case is ripe and appeal-able. I agree also that the district court cases holding that Congress did not intend the forfeiture provisions of RICO and CCE to apply to legitimate counsel fees, e.g., United States v. Estevez, 645 F.Supp. 869, 871-72 (E.D.Wis.1986), were erroneously decided. Reading the “bona fide” purchaser provision, 18 U.S.C. § 1963(i )(6)(B) (Supp. IV 1986), to cover attorneys who have reasonable cause to believe their fees might be payable out of property subject to *86forfeiture improperly contorts the plain language of the statute. See United States v. Harvey, 814 F.2d 905, 913-16 (4th Cir.1987), reh’g en banc granted sub nom. United States v. Caplin & Drysdale, Chartered (June 11, 1987). After all, as Judge Leval noted, “[n]o one is more on notice of likelihood that the money may come from ... prohibited activity than the lawyer who is asked to represent the defendant in the trial of the indictment.” United States v. Badalamenti, 614 F.Supp. 194, 196 (S.D.N.Y.1985).
However, the majority opinion’s characterization of the right to counsel as merely “a defendant’s interest in using possibly tainted assets” permits deference to congressional policy in the face of conflicting constitutional rights. The Sixth Amendment is implicated not only on the individual level of the particular defendant, but also on the institutional level of the criminal justice system as a whole.1 See Cloud, Forfeiting Defense Attorneys’ Fees: Applying an Institutional Role Theory to Define Individual Constitutional Rights, 1987 Wis.L.Rev. 1, 8-15; Note, Against Forfeiture of Attorneys’ Fees Under RICO: Protecting the Constitutional Rights of Criminal Defendants, 61 N.Y.U.L.Rev. 124, 146-48 (1986). Therefore, I agree with the result in Harvey, 814 F.2d at 924-26,2 and would not limit the analysis, as does the majority, to weighing the Government’s interest in forfeiture against the defendant’s interest in using his property to employ counsel of his choice. Rather, I would also consider the systemic interest of permitting defense counsel to perform their proper role in our adversary system of justice. As the Supreme Court said in United States v. Cronic, 466 U.S. 648, 655, 104 S.Ct. 2039, 2044-45, 80 L.Ed.2d 657 (1984) (quoting Herring v. New York, 422 U.S. 853, 862, 95 S.Ct. 2550, 2555, 45 L.Ed.2d 593 (1975)), “[t]he very premise of our adversary system of criminal justice is that partisan advocacy on both sides of a case will best promote the ultimate objective that the guilty be convicted and the innocent go free.” See also Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 685-86, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 2063-64, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984); Polk County v. Dodson, 454 U.S. 312, 318-19, 102 S.Ct. 445, 449-50, 70 L.Ed.2d 509 (1981). The process itself is worthy of protection.
By failing to credit the institutional interests in a fair adversarial system, the majority opinion provides the Government with a negative, indeed an unwholesome, power over the defendant’s choice of counsel in the very type of complex criminal case where astute, experienced counsel is most needed. RICO and CCE cases involve vague statutes and severe penalties. If a conspiracy charge was, in Learned Hand’s words, the “darling of the modern prosecutor’s nursery,” Harrison v. United States, 7 F.2d 259, 263 (2d Cir.1925), what would he say of a RICO charge whose three or four conspiracies are charged as the “predicate” acts? E.g., United States v. Ruggiero, 726 F.2d 913, 918-19 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 469 U.S. 831, 105 S.Ct. 118, 83 L.Ed.2d 60 (1984). Can we seriously contend that a proper balance would be effected in such cases by giving a defendant, made “indigent” by the Government’s assertion of a potential forfeiture claim, a young attorney from an underfunded, overworked public defender’s office for the ensuing 6-15 month trial? See Cloud, 1987 Wis.L.Rev. at 47-48 & n. 224. Or a lawyer appointed under the Criminal Justice Act, with its limitations on fees for attorneys, 18 U.S.C. § 3006A(d)(l) (1982 & Supp. IV 1986), and investigative or expert services? 18 U.S.C. § 3006A(e) (1982 & Supp. IV 1986). See United States v. Reckmeyer, 631 F.Supp. 1191, 1197 (E.D.Va.1986), aff'd sub nom. Harvey, 814 F.2d 905.
While Congress may wish to consider the pre-trial mini-trial that the majority opinion *87proposes in any attempt to revise the statute to meet the constitutional demands, the proposal is problematic. First, I am curious as to who will represent the defendant at this hearing. Second, in theory the Government’s burden of showing likelihood of success on the merits of the criminal charges and on the issue of forfeitability of the assets is substantial. But, as a practical matter, absent rigorous cross-examination or the production of evidence to show that the defendant’s property was earned or derived from legitimate sources, the Government will have little trouble meeting that burden. Thus, the mini-trial would do little to protect the interests of either the defendant or the adversarial system. Finally, we should be hesitant to create this new procedural step in light of the Supreme Court’s firm rejection of the new universe of mini-trials in respect to class actions. Eisen v. Carlisle & Jacquelin, 417 U.S. 156, 177-78, 94 S.Ct. 2140, 2152-53, 40 L.Ed.2d 732 (1974).
The forfeiture statute, which permits the Government to recapture attorneys’ fees paid before conviction, is unconstitutional at least on Sixth Amendment, and possibly on Fifth Amendment due process, grounds. See United States v. Thier, 801 F.2d 1463, 1475-77 (5th Cir.1986) (Rubin, J., concurring); Cloud, 1987 Wis.L.Rev. at 50 n. 237. See also United States v. Bassett, 632 F.Supp. 1308, 1316 (D.Md.1986) (“Although the ‘relation back’ aspect of the forfeiture statute is only triggered by conviction, the practical effect is that if forfeiture is applied to attorneys’ fees the true impact is felt prior to conviction.”), aff'd sub nom. Harvey, 814 F.2d 905. Judge Leval put it even better in Badalamenti:
A lawyer who was so foolish, ignorant, beholden or idealistic as to take the business would find himself in inevitable positions of conflict. His obligation to be well informed on the subject of his client’s case would conflict with his interest in not learning facts that would endanger his fee by telling him his fee was the proceeds of illegal activity. If he made efforts to fight the forfeiture claiming he was “reasonably without cause to believe that the property was subject to forfeiture,” the evidence on this issue would consist primarily of privileged matter confided to him by his client. He might furthermore be found to have accepted a contingent fee in a criminal case in violation of DR 2-106(C), since his retention of his fee would depend on gaining an acquittal in the client’s trial. The statute would give attorneys a motive to negotiate a guilty plea that did not involve forfeiture, rather than fight the case expending valuable time and increasing the risk of incurring forfeiture.
614 F.Supp. at 196-97.
Surely this statute not only intrudes upon the individual’s right to secure counsel of his choice. It shakes the very foundations of our criminal justice system.
Accordingly I dissent.

. Although this court wherever possible must construe statutes to avoid unconstitutional results, Crowell v. Benson, 285 U.S. 22, 62, 52 S.Ct. 285, 296, 76 L.Ed. 598 (1932), here neither the legislative history nor the plain language of the statute supports an exemption for attorneys’ fees from forfeiture. Therefore, the Sixth and Fifth Amendment concerns cannot be ignored. See Harvey, 814 F.2d at 917-18.

. Harvey, of course, held that the Act could properly reach fraudulent or sham transfers to an attorney, 814 F.2d at 924, 929, and I agree with that also.