Court Opinion

ID: 9493736
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 15:17:35.372346+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:56:00.407580
License: Public Domain

SLOVITER, Circuit Judge,
Dissenting.
I cannot join the majority’s opinion. I believe it fails to recognize the express limitation in this court’s prior cases that consider what is required to give notice of forfeiture. In the name of due process, the majority expands that requirement beyond the applicable precedent and extends the government’s duty beyond reasonable *482limits without providing a workable benchmark.
A.
The Supreme Court enunciated the overarching principle of due process notice in Mullane v. Central Hanover Bank & Trust Co., 339 U.S. 306, 314, 70 S.Ct. 652, 94 L.Ed. 865 (1950), stating that “[a]n elementary and fundamental requirement of due process ... is notice reasonably calculated, under all the circumstances, to apprise interested parties of the pendency of the action and afford them an opportunity to present their objections.” That principle was applied in Robinson v. Hanrahan, 409 U.S. 38, 93 S.Ct. 30, 34 L.Ed.2d 47 (1972), where the Supreme Court held that notice mailed to a prisoner’s home address by the state in whose custody the prisoner was held failed to meet the standard set in Mullane. Thereafter, this court was presented with three cases relating to the adequacy of notice of different forfeitures to the same prisoner, Reginald McGlory: United States v. $184,505.01 in U.S. Currency, 72 F.3d 1160 (3d Cir.1995) (notice deficient when sent to last home address of claimant the government knew to be incarcerated); United States v. McGlory, 202 F.3d 664 (3d Cir.2000) (en bane) (notice inadequate when sent to United States Marshal’s Service located in courthouse where claimant was convicted rather than to prison where he was incarcerated); and United States v. One Toshiba Color Television, 213 F.3d 147 (3d Cir.2000) (en banc) (notice inadequate when sent to prisoner’s pre-incarceration address and his ex-wife’s home).
In all three McGlory cases, the disposi-tive fact with regard to the due process requirement was that the person seeking to challenge the forfeiture was in prison at the time of the notice. As we stated in One Toshiba, “the circumstances of prisoners differ greatly from free citizens, a fact that potentially alters the evaluation of what steps are reasonably calculated to provide notice. When an individual is incarcerated at a location of the government’s choosing, the government’s ability to find and directly serve him or her with papers is at or near its zenith. Not only does the government know where to find the person, it can be equally sure that he or she will be there when the papers are delivered. Indeed, it can even move the person to a more convenient location if it so chooses.” 213 F.3d at 154.
B.
The majority relies on these and other cases where the issue was the nature of the government’s duty to give notice of forfeiture to a prisoner whose whereabouts the government must be presumed to know, unlike this case where the appellant was at large. The case at hand more closely resembles Madewell v. Downs, 68 F.3d 1030, 1046 (8th Cir.1995), than any case in the McGlory trilogy. In Madewell, the DEA mailed a notice by certified mail to the address the property owner gave when arrested and took no further action directly to notify him, even after the letter was returned marked “Moved. Left no address.” Before the notice was sent, Madewell had given his new address to the prosecutor in the related state proceeding, but the DEA never called the prosecutor. The Eighth Circuit held that the DEA’s notification efforts were constitutionally sufficient, noting that Madewell like Foehl was not in federal custody, not being prosecuted for a federal offense, and not on release to a new address by a federal court during the notice period. The court found the DEA had no obligation to inquire as to Madewell’s address because it had no notice the address had changed. See Madewell, 68 F.3d at 1050.
I do not disagree with the propositions the majority derives from the cases it cites, namely that: (1) the government does not satisfy due process when it sends a notice to an interested party’s home address knowing the party is in prison; and (2) the government has a heightened burden to ensure notice to an incarcerated *483interested party, particularly when it incarcerated the party. However, these propositions are neither inconsistent with Madewell nor compel a finding that the notice in this case was inadequate. The majority fails to address the following obvious distinctions between the cases establishing these principles and this case: (1) the DEA did not know Foehl did not reside at the Thompson Court address when it mailed the notice there; (2) Foehl was not incarcerated at the time the government sought to give notice of the forfeiture, nor was he subject to any version of federal custody during the notice period; and (3) Foehl violated Alabama law by failing to update the address on his driver’s license.

1.The-DEA Did Not Know the Thompson Court Address Was Incorrect

Judging the DEA’s initial notification effort at the time it was made, it was reasonably calculated to notify Foehl of the impending forfeiture. This good faith effort is completely distinguishable from the notification efforts this court found deficient in the McGlory trilogy. In the McGlory cases, the government had reason to know when it sent the notices that McGlory did not reside at the addresses to which it sent them.
It is clear that when the government mails a notice to an address where it knows an interested party does not reside (for example, because it has incarcerated the party) it has not made reasonable efforts to notify the party. See $184,505.01 in U.S. Currency, 72 F.3d at 1163-64 (citing Robinson, 409 U.S. 38, 93 S.Ct. 30, 34 L.Ed.2d 47, and other cases). However, I am not persuaded by the majority’s apparent equation of such a situation to one in which the government mails a notice to an address where it believes a claimant resides, only to discover that the address is invalid when the notice is returned undelivered. In the first situation, the notice was constitutionally inadequate when sent. In the second, the notice, when sent, was reasonably calculated to reach the claimant. Cf. Madewell, 68 F.3d at 1046 (“Whether notice was adequate is measured at the time the notice was sent.”) (quoting United States v. Woodall, 12 F.3d 791, 794 (8th Cir.1993)).
2. Foehl Was Not Incarcerated
Because Foehl was not incarcerated during the notice period, he did not “lack[ ] the ability to take steps to ensure that his mail [was] actually delivered to him,” One Toshiba, 213 F.3d at 154, one of the important bases on which we predicated that decision. As we explained, “[i]n the outside world, an individual who changes addresses can arrange to have mail forwarded and can notify interested parties as to the change of address.” Id. This is particularly applicable to Foehl, who was well aware that the officers had found and seized $93,163 in cash along with marijuana hidden in spare tires in his wife’s truck while he was driving it.
Moreover, the fact that Foehl was released by the Beaumont police on bail, mentioned by the majority, did not impact in any way his ability to take steps to ensure the delivery of his mail. Nor did this nón-federal “custody” give the federal government any special information concerning Foehl’s whereabouts. Therefore, the DEA was not subject to the heightened notice requirements applicable when the claimant is in (federal) custody.
3. Foehl Did Not Comply with Alabama’s Address — Change Requirements
Alabama law obliged Foehl to correct his address on his driver’s license within thirty days of moving, which requirement is written on the back of Alabama driver’s licenses. See Walton Deck, ¶8, Supp.App. at 67; Exhibits F, G, Supp.App. at 79-80 (copies of the Alabama Department of Public Safety rules and regulations and the driver’s license in effect in 1989). The Post Office, when asked, will forward an individual’s mail from the old to the new *484address for longer than one month. See, e.g., United States Postal Service Web Page, http://www.usps.com/movers-net/q-anduaMml (January 8, 2001). Foehl claims to have moved from Thompson Court to Lott Road one year before his arrest. During that period, he did not notify the Alabama authorities of his change of address in compliance with the law. Therefore, any confusion as to his proper address caused by his driver’s license is of Foehl’s own creation.
C.
The majority writes that “[ajfter learning that [Foehl] did not receive the letter mailed to the Thompson Court address, the DEA, with the most minimal effort, could have obtained [his] correct address and notified him of the impending forfeiture.” The majority proffers “four obvious sources: the Beaumont Township Police Department, the Jefferson County district attorney, the DEA office for Alabama, and the Alabama Driver’s License Bureau.” It concludes the “failure to check with any of these sources was unreasonable under the circumstances.”
Because this is not a case in which Foehl was in custody during the forfeiture notice period, there is no reason to place on the forfeiting agency the burden of checking with all possible sources of Foehl’s then current address. The DEA’s original notice, sent to Foehl’s stated address, satisfied due process. Nonetheless, I will consider briefly whether the DEA had any reason to look to the sources suggested by the majority.

1.The Beaumont Township Police and the Alabama Dnver’s License Bureau

When Foehl was arrested and .the money and drugs seized by the Beaumont police in Jefferson County, Texas, his driver’s license listed his Thompson Court address. This was the address the Beaumont police provided to the DEA and thus the address that the DEA used to send its notice of forfeiture. Even if, as the majority states, Foehl “sharply contests]” which address he gave to the Beaumont police at the time of his arrest, there is no dispute that the Beaumont authorities sent the Thompson Court address to the DEA.
Because the Beaumont police had provided the first invalid address taken from Foehl’s driver’s license, the DEA had no particular reason to believe that either the Beaumont police or the Alabama Driver’s License Bureau had a better one. The agency could reasonably assume that: (1) Foehl maintained an up-to-date address on his driver’s license pursuant to Alabama law; (2) Foehl would otherwise have made a point to notify the police of his actual address; and (3) the Beaumont police would have included a second address had Foehl provided one. The fact that we now know in hindsight that one or more of these assumptions would have been incorrect does not make them unreasonable.
2. The Jefferson County District Attorney
Because the Jefferson County district attorney, like the DEA, presumably received his information on Foehl from the Beaumont police, it is unclear why the DEA would have expected the district attorney to have a more accurate address for Foehl than did the Beaumont police. Moreover, it is unclear what the district attorney, if contacted, would have told the DEA. The district attorney did have Foehl’s Lott Road address as early as March 12, 1993, when he sent a Complaint of forfeiture of the truck to Lott Road. However, the receipt of service of the Complaint was not signed by Foehl or by his wife, but by “Carol Barnhill,” apparently no relation. Therefore, by the time the DEA’s March 29 notice of forfeiture was returned, the Jefferson County district attorney already knew Lott Road to be, at best, an uncertain address for Foehl.
3. The DEA Office for Alabama
The majority questions the DEA’s judgment in directing its inquiry regarding *485Foehl to DEA-Houston rather than to the DEA division covering Alabama, given that Foehl was from Alabama and that DEA-Houston “had no prior involvement with [Foehl’s] case.” However, there was no reason for the DEA forfeiture division to contact the Alabama division, which was not involved with the forfeiture at issue. In fact, DEA-Houston was the originating division for the forfeiture, according to both parties’ briefs. Foehl himself appears to concede that DEA Houston was the appropriate division.1 Therefore, the DEA’s inquiry to its Houston division after its first notice to Foehl was returned constituted precisely the type of reasonable inquiry the majority suggests the DEA should have made.2 This hardly constitutes a “glaring lack of effort,” as the majority chooses to characterize it.
D.
In conclusion, the relevant precedent requires the government to take reasonable measures to notify an interested party of impending forfeiture proceedings. The DEA’s initial notice alone, and certainly when combined with its follow-up inquiry to its Houston division, satisfies this requirement. No case obliges the government to go to extraordinary lengths in its notification efforts, yet that is precisely what the majority holds is required. This conflicts with our repeated statements that the government duly is to provide notice to an individual “whose name and address are known or reasonably ascertainable.” McGlory, 202 F.3d at 672 (quotation omitted). The majority has thus raised the level of due process beyond that ever suggested by the Supreme Court or this court, and has not provided any standard that the forfeiting agency should follow in the next case. It is not enough for a court to say merely, “do better,” yet that is what the majority has done.
Therefore, I respectfully dissent.

. Foehl argues that the DEA’s inquiry was ineffective, not because Houston was the wrong division but because the DEA misidentified him by inquiring about “Don Foehl” or “Don Ameche Foehl,” rather than "Don Ameche Foehl, Sr.”

. One additional point the majority does not address is whether the DEA would have met with success had it made one of the suggested inquiries, obtained Foehl’s Lott Road address, and sent a notice there. In fact, there is no evidence that Foehl received the forfeiture notice for his wife's truck, which the Jefferson County District Attorney sent to the Lott Road address.