State v. Greene

473 S.E.2d 921, 196 W. Va. 500, 1996 W. Va. LEXIS 110
CourtWest Virginia Supreme Court
DecidedJuly 11, 1996
Docket23063
StatusPublished
Cited by51 cases

This text of 473 S.E.2d 921 (State v. Greene) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering West Virginia Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Greene, 473 S.E.2d 921, 196 W. Va. 500, 1996 W. Va. LEXIS 110 (W. Va. 1996).

Opinions

ALBRIGHT, Justice.

Robert L. Greene, defendant below and appellant, appeals an order of the Circuit Court of Cabell County, which denied his motion to vacate his sentence and dismiss his indictment. The circuit court ruled that the civil forfeiture of appellant’s property, followed by a criminal indictment and conviction that arose from the same conduct, did not constitute double jeopardy. We agree. Based upon a recent decision of the United States Supreme Court, we find that the civil forfeiture of appellant’s property1 did not constitute punishment, and, therefore, appellant was not subjected to double jeopardy. Consequently, we affirm.

FACTS

On September 17,1993, Robert L. Greene, appellant and defendant below, was arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol and possession -with intent to deliver a controlled substance. Incident to the arrest, officers seized the 1987 Chevrolet truck appellant was driving, along with a weight scale and a cellular telephone. On October 7, 1993, the State filed a petition requesting forfeiture of the seized property under the West Virginia Contraband Forfeiture Act, W.Va.Code § 60A-7-701, et seq. Appellant filed an answer to the forfeiture petition, objecting only to the forfeiture of the cellular telephone.2 By order entered December 1, 1993, the State’s forfeiture petition was granted with regard to the track and the weight scale. Thereafter, the grand jury returned an indictment, which was filed on May 10, 1994, charging appellant with one count of possession with intent to deliver a controlled substance.

Appellant initially entered a plea of not guilty on June 10, 1994. However, on December 16, 1994, the court accepted appellant’s plea of guilty to the lesser included misdemeanor offense of possession of a con[502]*502trolled substance. On the same day, appellant was sentenced to six months in the Cabell County Jail and fined one thousand dollars.

Appellant subsequently filed a motion to vacate his sentence and dismiss his indictment on double jeopardy grounds. Appellant argued that the civil forfeiture of his property and the criminal indictment arose from the same conduct; consequently, he was punished for the same conduct in separate proceedings. The court denied the motion without prejudice and explained that the relief sought properly should be brought under the post-conviction habeas corpus statutes so that appellant would be entitled to a single omnibus hearing. Appellant then filed a motion for correction of sentence under Rule 35(a) of the West Virginia Rules of Criminal Procedure.3 Appellant argued that his sentence was an illegal violation of the double jeopardy principles contained in the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution and Article III, § 5 of the West Virginia Constitution. Appellant also filed a motion for stay of execution of his sentence. By order filed June 21, 1995, the Circuit Court of Cabell County denied appellant’s motion to correct his sentence and granted his motion for stay of execution. It is from this order that appellant now appeals.

DISCUSSION

The sole issue we are asked to determine on appeal is whether the civü forfeiture of appellant’s property, followed by his criminal conviction, violated double jeopardy principles provided for in the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution and Article III, § 5 of the West Virginia Constitution. Appellant argues that he was punished for the same conduct in separate proceedings, first through the civil forfeiture of his property, and then when he was sentenced after his guilty plea in the criminal action. We disagree.

In United States v. Ward, 448 U.S. 242, 100 S.Ct. 2636, 65 L.Ed.2d 742 (1980), the United States Supreme Court adopted the following two-part test for determining whether a civil forfeiture constitutes punishment, which would violate double jeopardy principles:

Our inquiry [into whether a particular statutorily defined penalty is civil or criminal] has traditionally proceeded on two levels. First, we have set out to determine whether Congress, in establishing the penalizing mechanism, indicated either expressly or impliedly a preference for one label or the other. See One Lot Emerald Cut Stones v. United States, [409 U.S. 232, 236-237, 93 S.Ct. 489, 492-493, 34 L.Ed.2d 438, 442-443 (1972) ]. Second, where Congress has indicated an intention to establish a civil penalty, we have inquired further whether the statutory scheme was so punitive either in purpose or effect as to negate that intention. See Flemming v. Nestor, 363 U.S. 603, 617-621, 80 S.Ct. 1367 [1376-1378], 4 L.Ed.2d 1435.

Id. at 248-249, 100 S.Ct. at 2641, 65 L.Ed.2d at 749.

Appellant argues that this two-part test no longer applies. To support this argument, appellant relies on U.S. v. $405,089.23 U.S. Currency, 33 F.3d 1210 (9th Cir.1994), as amended by 56 F.3d 41 (1995), wherein the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reasoned that the Supreme Court had abandoned this two-part test through its decisions in United States v. Halper, 490 U.S. 435, 109 S.Ct. 1892, 104 L.Ed.2d 487 (1989), Austin v. United States, 509 U.S. 602, 113 S.Ct. 2801, 125 L.Ed.2d 488 (1993), and Department of Revenue of Mont. v. Kurth Ranch, 511 U.S. 767, 114 S.Ct. 1937, 128 L.Ed.2d 767 (1994), in favor of a new test, which states that a civil sanction constitutes punishment for double jeopardy purposes when the “civil sanction [ ] cannot fairly be said solely to serve a remedial purpose, but rather can only be explained as also serving either retributive or deterrent purposes.” $405,089.28 U.S. Currency at 1218.

$405,089.23 U.S. Currency was appealed to the United States Supreme Court, where it was consolidated with a Sixth Circuit ease that had reached a similar conclusion.4 The [503]*503Supreme Court granted review in order to determine whether the Court had in fact abandoned its traditional two-prong test for determining whether a civil forfeiture constituted punishment. The Court reversed both cases and held that “civil forfeitures ... [in general] do not constitute ‘punishment’ for purposes of the Double Jeopardy Clause.” U.S. v. Ursery, — U.S.-,-, 116 S.Ct. 2135, 2138, 135 L.Ed.2d 549 (1996).5 In addition, the Court reaffirmed its traditional two-prong test.

This Court has previously recognized that “[t]he scope of the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment of the Federal Constitution is at least coextensive with that of the Double Jeopardy Clause in the West Virginia Constitution.” State v. Sears, 196 W.Va. 71, 75 n. 6, 468 S.E.2d 324, 328 (1996);

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
473 S.E.2d 921, 196 W. Va. 500, 1996 W. Va. LEXIS 110, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-greene-wva-1996.