Court Opinion

ID: 9469788
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 02:49:14.819531+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:41:34.172454
License: Public Domain

ERVIN, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
Because I believe that 21 U.S.C. § 881(b)(4) requires contemporaneity of the seizure of a vehicle with the probable cause that allows the seizure, I respectfully dissent. I agree with the First Circuit in United States v. Pappas, 613 F.2d 324 (1st Cir. 1979) that the proper construction of § 881(b) necessitates that the seizure be proximate in time to the manifestation of probable cause. Any other reading of the law vitiates the other provisions of the statute.
I find particularly objectionable the majority’s reasoning that the government can receive a tip from an informant about an event that occurred a year earlier, wait another year without receiving any additional information about drug transactions in the automobile, and then assert that the government has owned the automobile for two years. This warped analogy to property law, adopted from the Eighth Circuit in United States v. O’Reilly, 486 F.2d 208 (8th Cir.) cert. denied, 414 U.S. 1043, 94 S.Ct. 546, 38 L.Ed.2d 334 (1973), destroys any semblance of logic in construing § 881(b). Contrary to the assertion that property is forfeited the moment it is used in violation of the drug laws, the property may not be forfeited until long after it is seized by the government. Cf. Cooper v. California, 386 U.S. 58, 87 S.Ct. 788, 17 L.Ed.2d 730 (1967) (property not forfeited until four months after it was seized under a state forfeiture statute).
Additional justification for the result reached in Pappas can be found by a close reading of subsections (a) and (b) of § 881, in pari materia. The first sentence of subsection (b) limits its application to “[a]ny property subject to forfeiture . . .. ” Subsection (a) defines property subject to forfeiture, with the following paragraph being applicable to our case: “(4) All conveyances, including aircraft, vehicles, or vessels, which are used, or are intended for use, to *403transport, or in any manner to facilitate the transportation, sale, receipt, possession, or concealment of property described in paragraph (1) or (2) ____” 21 U.S.C. § 881(a)(4) (emphasis added). The use-of the present tense requires that to be subject to seizure under subsection (b), the object of the seizure must currently be in use, or intended for use, in violation of the drug laws. Assuming, as we must, that our national legislators did not intend to contradict the language of subsection (a) by the use of “has been used” in subsection (b), I can only conclude that contemporaneity of probable cause is necessary to effect a legal seizure of the vehicle. Because the probable cause in this case allegedly arose two years before the seizure, I must respectfully dissent.