Court Opinion

ID: 9492723
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 14:49:03.726688+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:55:27.910458
License: Public Domain

*769COLE, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
I disagree with the majority opinion in this case because I find the reasoning of the Ninth and Tenth Circuits in United States v. Marolf, 173 F.3d 1213 (9th Cir. 1999) and Clymore v. United States, 164 F,3d 569 (10th Cir.1999) more persuasive than the Second Circuit’s decision in Boero v. Drug Enforcement Administration, 111 F.3d 301 (2nd Cir.1997).
As the majority stated, in Boero, the Second Circuit held that defective notices of appeal should be treated as voidable rather than void, thereby tolling the statute of limitations for the filing of judicial forfeiture proceedings. I disagree, seeing no reason to determine the merits of a challenged forfeiture when the original notice was constitutionally defective and the statute of limitations has run. Inadequate notice is void and constitutionally defective. In this instance, there is simply no reason to disregard the five-year statute of limitations set forth in 19 U.S.C. § 1621, short of the rare occasions when the government has a valid basis for the application of laches or equitable tolling. Such would be the case when a claimant receives borderline notice and sits on a Rule 41(e) motion until the five-year statute of limitations has run, a scenario that the majority fears.
As noted in Marolf, courts should be “particularly wary of civil forfeiture statutes, for they impose ‘quasi-criminal’ penalties without affording property owners all of the procedural protections afforded criminal defendants.” 173 F.3d at 1217 (citation and quotation omitted). Further, “[d]ue process protections ought to be diligently enforced, and by no means relaxed, where a party seeks the traditionally disfavored remedy of forfeiture.” Clymore, 164 F.3d at 574 (citation and quotation omitted). For these reasons, I respectfully dissent from the majority opinion.