United States v. Brett Allen Bursey

515 F.2d 1228, 1975 U.S. App. LEXIS 13623
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
DecidedJuly 18, 1975
Docket74-3607
StatusPublished
Cited by40 cases

This text of 515 F.2d 1228 (United States v. Brett Allen Bursey) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
United States v. Brett Allen Bursey, 515 F.2d 1228, 1975 U.S. App. LEXIS 13623 (5th Cir. 1975).

Opinion

GOLDBERG, Circuit Judge:

This appeal arises from a unique procedural matrix. In the Spring of 1973, Appellant Brett Allen Bursey was convicted by a jury in the Southern District of Texas of possession of peyote in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a), and was sentenced to four years imprisonment. Brett Bursey was granted leave to proceed in forma pauperis on appeal, and counsel was appointed to represent him. Bond pending appeal was set at $10,000. At the time of the initiation of his appeal, Brett Bursey was in the South Carolina State Penitentiary on an unrelated conviction. In order that he might be released immediately upon the expiration of his South Carolina sentence, Brett Bursey arranged while still incarcerated there for the posting of a cash deposit on his Southern District of Texas bond. By letter of August 27, 1973, to the clerk of the federal district court in South Carolina, Brett Bursey advised that a 10% deposit on his bond was to be deposited into the registry of the court, that his own financial status had not changed “since the court accepted my petition to proceed in forma pauperis,” and that upon performance of bond conditions, the 10% deposit should be returned to his parents, Dr. or Mrs. Don C. Bursey.

On August 31, 1973, Brett Bursey was released on an appearance bond in connection with his peyote possession case, executed by him before Charles W. Gambrell, a federal magistrate in the District of South Carolina. 1 The bond recited that a cashier’s check for $1,000, representing the 10% deposit, had been lodged in the registry of the District Court for the District of South Carolina. On the same day, Magistrate Gambrell transmitted the bond, the check, and Brett Bursey’s August 27 letter to the Deputy Clerk of the District Court for the Southern District of Texas in Corpus Christi. The Deputy Clerk in Corpus Christi transmitted the check to the Deputy Clerk in Houston on September 4, with directions that the deposit should revert to the Bursey parents upon disposition of the case.

Brett Bursey’s peyote conviction was subsequently reversed on Fourth Amendment grounds. United States v. Bursey, 5 Cir. 1974, 491 F.2d 531. On remand the district court dismissed the indictment against Brett Bursey in an order entered May 14, 1974. Nothing further of consequence transpired until September 23, 1974. On that date, without notice to the parties or a prior hearing, the district court entered an order directing the clerk of the court to transmit $1,000, the amount of Brett Bursey’s cash deposit on bond, to the Administrative Office of the United States Courts for deposit in the Treasury as reimbursement for the costs of his appointed counsel. 2 Au *1232 thority for the order was laid to 18 U.S.C. § 3006A(f). 3 The order of the district court has been executed, and the parties agree that the $1,000 has by this time reached the Treasury.

Brett Bursey filed a notice of appeal from the district court’s September 23 order on October 3, 1974. On December 13, 1974, Brett Bursey’s parents, who were not parties to the proceedings before the district court in their son’s criminal case, filed a motion in this court for leave to intervene, together with a supplemental memorandum of law. Their petition recites that the $1,000 cash deposit was their property and that they, rather than Brett Bursey, are thus the real parties in interest. This motion, ■never opposed by the Government, was granted by a judge of this court in an order entered December 26, 1974. The three appellants Bursey have briefed and argued this cause together on the theory that the district judge erred in ordering the cash deposit to be deposited in the Treasury because the funds belonged to the senior Burseys alone. Specifically, they maintain that the trial court’s summary action was not authorized under 18 U.S.C. § 3006A, and that it offends their due process rights to a prior hearing and Brett Bursey’s statutory right to bail pending appeal. They pray f< returning the cash deposit t<. md Mrs. Don C. Bursey. The Unit a^p ates has argued in response that t jP trial judgé’s actions were proper and t.*at, in any event, this court lacks jurisdiction at this time to grant the relief sought to these parties. On its jurisdictional points the Government argues that the elder Burseys’ claims must fail, first because they were not parties below, and second because sovereignty immunizes the government from any action to withdraw the property already covered into the Treasury. We conclude that jurisdiction exists to determine the merits of the case between these parties; on the merits, we hold that the district court erred in distributing the cash deposit funds without an “adequate inquiry”; we thus remand with directions that the court vacate the order appealed from, allow appellants an opportunity to plead, and conduct such further proceedings as are necessary to comply with our holding here.

We turn first to the question of sovereign immunity.

I.

The parties agree that the September 23 order of the district court has been *1233 carried out and that the $1,000 deposit has become safely lodged in the Treasury of the United States. With the passage of this money into the Treasury, the Government argues that the sovereign immunity of the United States dispossesses the district court of any jurisdiction to order its reimbursement to the Burseys and that this appeal is now moot. Instead, the Government asserts, the Burseys must be relegated to the initiation of a separate action against the Government under the Tucker Act, 4 for the recovery of their lost deposit. 5

We are not assured of the correctness of the Government’s premise, for which it offers no authorities, that sovereign immunity protects it from an order to return money awarded it in a lawsuit if it appears on direct appeal that the award was erroneous. Certainly there can be no doubt that if the order of the district court had been stayed, and the deposit money had never reached the Treasury, then an order vacating the September 23 order and refunding the deposit to Brett Bursey or his assigns would be within our jurisdiction. But the Government asserts that the speed of execution of the district court’s order cuts off our review and even the lower court’s reconsideration. This reasoning seems contrary to the ordinary conceptions of appellate review. See 28 U.S.C. § 2106; cf. note 11 infra. We need not pursue this precise line of inquiry, however, because we think that in any event the Government’s waiver of sovereign immunity in the Tucker Act is applicable here. The Government admits that the Tucker Act comprehends claims of the substantive nature asserted here; the only . question is whether the Tucker Act’s waiver may be invoked only upon the initiation of a separate suit.

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Bluebook (online)
515 F.2d 1228, 1975 U.S. App. LEXIS 13623, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-brett-allen-bursey-ca5-1975.