Court Opinion

ID: 9477983
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 06:36:15.854652+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:46:09.260912
License: Public Domain

OAKES, Circuit Judge
(concurring):
I concur in the per curiam opinion and in Chief Judge Feinberg’s Sixth Amendment opinion so far as it goes. As the dissenter on the original panel, 836 F.2d 74, 85 (2d Cir.1987), I am pleased that the court saw fit to rehear the case en banc and that the majority sees fit to reverse the district court. I write only a few additional words to amplify my views, as set forth in that dissent, that the forfeiture statute is “unconstitutional at least on Sixth Amendment, and possibly on Fifth Amendment due process, grounds.” Id. at 87.
The Sixth Amendment, in my view, is implicated not only on the individual level of the particular defendant’s right to the counsel of his choice, but also on the institutional level of the criminal justice system as a whole. That is, there is a systemic interest in permitting defense counsel to perform their proper role in our adversary system of justice, a role in and of itself worthy of protection. Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 685-86, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 2063-64, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984); United States v. Cronic, 466 U.S. 648, 655-56, 104 S.Ct. 2039, 2044-45, 80 L.Ed.2d 657 (1984); Herring v. New York, 422 U.S. 853, 862, 95 S.Ct. 2550, 2555, 45 L.Ed.2d 593 (1975). See also 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). By permitting prosecutors to undermine the quality of the defendants’ counsel in the very type of complex criminal case (RICO, CCE) where astute, experienced counsel is most needed, the pretrial restraint and post-conviction “relation back” forfeiture provisions as applied to legitimate attorneys’ fees deny defendants counsel of choice and a fair trial. These Sixth Amendment considerations are not saved by a pretrial mini-trial such as was had here, for the reasons stated in 836 F.2d at 86-87.
The Fifth Amendment due process clause is also implicated, I now believe, for several reasons. The forfeiture statute puts too much power in the hands of the prosecution to determine who will not be defense counsel, power that is particularly pernicious because the present system of providing counsel for the indigent may not provide effective representation in the long, complicated RICO and CCE cases. See United States v. Thier, 801 F.2d 1463, 1473 (5th Cir.1986) (Rubin, J., concurring), modified, 809 F.2d 249 (5th Cir.1987). The forfeiture provisions infect the system with the unavoidable conflicts of interest and ethical dilemmas for the defense attorney that jeopardize the right to due process. See United States v. Badalamenti, 614 F.Supp. 194, 196-97 (S.D.N.Y.1985). See also Note, Attorney Fee Forfeiture, 86 Colum.L.Rev. 1021, 1030-36 (1986).
In addition, pretrial forfeiture, especially when coupled with pretrial detention, see United States v. Ojeda Rios, 846 F.2d 167 (2d Cir.1988), too closely resembles the Alice-in-Wonderland Queen’s “sentence first, verdict afterward” mode of justice. The history underlying the adoption of the Fifth Amendment, involving pretrial confinement, no right to counsel, bills of attainder, *1405and more, see L. Levy, Origins of the Fifth Amendment (1968), together with the interrelationship of the principles embodied in the Bill of Rights, see Oakes, The Proper Role of the Federal Courts in Enforcing the Bill of Rights, 54 N.Y.U.L.Rev. 911, 919-24 (1979), persuades me that the Founders would never have countenanced the Comprehensive Forfeiture Act of 1984, 21 U.S.C. § 853.
A statutory scheme that sacrifices the relationship between client and attorney, that invites the prosecutor to undermine the adversarial process, and that imposes sentence before trial (not to mention that denies a defendant his right to counsel of choice) cannot and must not survive constitutional scrutiny.