Commonwealth v. Allen

107 A.3d 709, 630 Pa. 577, 2014 Pa. LEXIS 3526
CourtSupreme Court of Pennsylvania
DecidedDecember 29, 2014
StatusPublished
Cited by63 cases

This text of 107 A.3d 709 (Commonwealth v. Allen) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Pennsylvania primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Commonwealth v. Allen, 107 A.3d 709, 630 Pa. 577, 2014 Pa. LEXIS 3526 (Pa. 2014).

Opinions

OPINION

Justice BAER.

Nearly eight years after criminal charges against him were dismissed, Todd Allen (Appellee) moved for the return of [711]*711property seized from the vehicle he was driving at the time of his arrest pursuant to Rule 588 of the Pennsylvania Rules of Criminal Procedure. The trial court, applying Commonwealth v. Setzer, 258 Pa.Super. 236, 392 A.2d 772 (1978), and Commonwealth v. One 1990 Dodge Ram Van, 751 A.2d 1235 (Pa.Cmwlth.2000), found that Appellee’s claim was waived because it had not been raised before the trial court that had jurisdiction over the criminal case against him. Although on appeal the Commonwealth Court affirmed, it declined to follow Setzer, overruled One 1990 Dodge Ram Van, applied a six-year statute of limitations to return motions filed pursuant to Rule 588, and held that Appellee’s motion was untimely because it was filed over six years after the charges against him were dismissed. On the Commonwealth’s appeal to this Court,1 we are persuaded that the Commonwealth Court erred by applying a statute of limitations analysis, and that the trial court was correct in applying the waiver analysis of Setzer and One 1990 Dodge Ram Van. We therefore hold that because Appellee had a prior opportunity to move for the return of property during the pendency of the criminal charges against him, his failure to do so resulted in waiver of this issue. This holding amounts to a rejection of the entirety of the Commonwealth Court’s analysis, but an affirmance of the denial of relief to Appellee.

On January 10, 2002, Appellee was arrested during a traffic stop for driving a stolen vehicle and related offenses. During the vehicle search that followed, the police seized $1060.00 in cash (the Property). On February 15, 2002, Appellee was held for trial on charges of theft by receiving stolen property, unauthorized use of an automobile, and criminal conspiracy. The Commonwealth, however, withdrew the charges against him by nolle prosequi, and Appellee’s case was disposed of on November 8,2002.

Over seven years later, on July 22, 2010, Appellee filed a petition for return of the Property pursuant to Rule 588.2 The [712]*712Commonwealth moved to dismiss on March 9, 2011, asserting that Appellee had waived his right to seek return of the Property by not moving for its return upon the final disposition of his criminal ease while the trial court retained jurisdiction. The Commonwealth relied on Setzer for support.

In Setzer, the appellant was arrested and charged with several criminal offenses and convicted following a non-jury trial. 892 A.2d at 772-73. Nearly two years after his conviction, he filed a petition seeking the return of $77.00 that had been confiscated from him during his arrest. Id. at 773. On appeal from the trial court’s denial of this petition, the Superior Court affirmed, applying a waiver analysis to hold that although the predecessor to Rule 588 did not specify when a petition for return of property must be filed, it could have been raised either within thirty days of trial in conjunction with post-verdict motions or within thirty days of sentencing in conjunction with post-sentence motions. Id. at 773 n. 4. According to the Superior Court, by failing to raise his entitlement to the return of property at trial or sentencing, when it was cognizable and the trial court had jurisdiction, the Setzer appellant had waived his right to raise the issue. Id. (“[W]e find it clear that practical considerations dictate that this issue be deemed waived when, as in the instant case, it is not raised until almost two years after disposition of the charges which gave rise to the confiscation of property.”); Commonwealth v. Romberger, 474 Pa. 190, 378 A.2d 283, 286 (1977) (“It is a fundamental doctrine in this jurisdiction that where an issue is cognizable in a given proceeding and is not raised it is waived and will not be considered on a review of that proceeding.”). The Commonwealth Court has likewise previously applied a waiver analysis in the same circumstances. One 1990 Dodge Ram Van, 751 A.2d at 1237 (holding the appellant waived the issue of return of property by failing to raise it following trial or sentencing for the underlying crimes).

The trial court in this case agreed with the Commonwealth and followed Setzer and One 1990 Dodge Ram Van to deny Appellee’s petition on April 28, 2011. Ap-pellee appealed to the Commonwealth Court, which affirmed on alternate grounds in an en banc published decision. Commonwealth v. Allen, 59 A.3d 677 (Pa.Cmwlth.2012) (en banc). Noting that Superior Court decisions are not binding on it, id. at 679 (citing Muntz v. Dep’t of Transp., 157 Pa.Cmwlth. 514, 630 A.2d 524, 525 (1993)), the Commonwealth Court declined to follow Setzer and overruled its decision in One 1990 Dodge Ram Van premised on its view that civil forfeiture and petitions for return of property are civil proceedings, and therefore independent of any underlying criminal prosecutions. Id. at 679 (citing Commonwealth v. Perez, 941 A.2d 778, 780 (Pa.Cmwlth.2008) (noting that civil forfeitures “are the in [713]*713rem consequence for wrongdoing prescribed by statute” and that property is not forfeited “as a result of the criminal conviction, but through a separate proceeding, civil in form but quasi-criminal in nature_”)).

The Commonwealth Court reasoned that the progress of an ancillary criminal proceeding may be irrelevant to either a forfeiture petition filed by the Commonwealth or a motion for return of property filed by a person entitled to lawful possession of the property, Allen, 59 A.3d at 679-80, noting there may be a civil forfeiture proceeding where no criminal charges were filed against the person from whom the property was seized. Id. at 680. Additionally, according to the Commonwealth Court, if the property was owned by a third-party uninvolved in the underlying criminal proceeding, it would be awkward to require that third-party to intervene in that criminal proceeding to seek the return of property via post-trial motions or at sentencing pursuant to the procedure endorsed in Setzer. Id. at 680 (“There is no precedent for such an awkward procedure because it makes no sense.”). The court failed to acknowledge that this case involved neither a return motion filed in answer to a forfeiture petition nor property that was owned by someone other than the accused in the underlying criminal proceeding, rendering its musings hypothetical and unnecessary for disposition of the matter before it.

Because post-trial motions must be filed within thirty days of the verdict, the Commonwealth Court characterized Setzer as imposing a thirty-day “statute of limitations” on petitions for return of property, which it held was not supported by Rule 588. In this regard, the Commonwealth Court evidently failed to discern that Set-zer

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
107 A.3d 709, 630 Pa. 577, 2014 Pa. LEXIS 3526, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/commonwealth-v-allen-pa-2014.