Court Opinion

ID: 9638100
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 15:33:16.026794+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:03.640630
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
PER CURIAM.
On motion for rehearing it is interestingly urged that Boyd v. United States, 116 U. S. 616, 6 S.Ct. 524, 525, 29 L.Ed. 746 and cases following it require that this proceeding for forfeiture be treated, for the purposes of the questions made, as a criminal case. We do not think so. In Boyd’s case a criminal offense was directly involved and must have been committed to cause the forfeiture. The forfeiture indeed was a part of the punishment prescribed for the offense, for the statute, after defining the offense, says of the offender that he “shall for each offense be fined in any sum not exceeding $5,000 nor less than $50, or be imprisoned for any time not exceeding two years, or both; and, in addition to such fine, such merchandise shall be forfeited.”
In this case no crime was committed. The crime which it was alleged was intended to be committed by selling the liquors at wholesale and without keeping records was prevented by the officers’ seizure of this property. The question at issue is not whether Kent had committed a crime by transporting the liquors by means of the truck, for he had not, but whether he was using the truck and liquors with the intention of committing a crime in the near future. Since no crime had been consummated, if Kent had testified to the most damaging view of his conduct it would only have been that he was about to commit a crime but did not. The seizure for forfeiture here is not in consequence of or in punishment for a crime, but to prevent one. The proceeding is preventive and remedial, rather than punitive or criminal. Compare Helvering v. Mitchell, 303 U.S. 391, 58 S.Ct. 630, 82 L.Ed. 917. And as in Bilokumsky v. Tod, 263 U.S. 149, 155, 44 S.Ct. 54, 68 L.Ed. 221, Kent could perhaps have been required to testify on the particular point of his intentions, which were never carried out, without any risk of incriminating himself.
Rehearing denied.