United States v. Forty-Seven Thousand Nine Hundred Eighty Dollars ($47,980.00) in Canadian Currency

726 F.2d 532, 1984 U.S. App. LEXIS 25269
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
DecidedFebruary 22, 1984
DocketCA 81-3415
StatusPublished
Cited by9 cases

This text of 726 F.2d 532 (United States v. Forty-Seven Thousand Nine Hundred Eighty Dollars ($47,980.00) in Canadian Currency) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Ninth 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. Forty-Seven Thousand Nine Hundred Eighty Dollars ($47,980.00) in Canadian Currency, 726 F.2d 532, 1984 U.S. App. LEXIS 25269 (9th Cir. 1984).

Opinion

CANBY, Circuit Judge:

Our previous decision in this civil forfeiture action is reported at 689 F.2d 858 (9th *533 Cir.1982), where the facts are fully set forth. There we affirmed a summary judgment against the government. We held that excessive delay by the government in instituting judicial forfeiture proceedings violated due process. In so holding, we relied substantially, as had the district court, on United States v. Eight Thousand Eight Hundred Fifty Dollars, 645 F.2d 836 (9th Cir.1981) (“$8,850’). Because the Supreme Court had granted certiorari in $8,850, we extended the time for the government to petition for rehearing of this appeal until the Supreme Court had decided $8,850.

On May 23, 1983, the Supreme Court entered its decision in $8,850,-U.S.-, 103 S.Ct. 2005, 76 L.Ed.2d 143. The government subsequently filed its petition for rehearing in this ease and claimant filed a response to that petition. On the strength of the Supreme Court’s decision in $8,850, we now grant the petition for rehearing, withdraw our previous decision, and reverse the summary judgment against the government. In reversing, we also reject two other grounds which were originally urged by claimant in support of the district court’s judgment but which were not dealt with in our previous decision.

In $8,850, the Supreme Court held that Barker v. Wingo, 407 U.S. 514, 92 S.Ct. 2182, 33 L.Ed.2d 101 (1972), supplied the appropriate test for determining whether delay in initiating judicial forfeiture proceedings violated due process. 103 S.Ct. at 2012. Barker requires a weighing' of four factors: the length of delay, the reason for the delay, the claimant’s assertion of his right, and prejudice to the claimant. Id. Applying these factors in $8,850, the Supreme Court held that an 18-month delay, “quite significant” in itself, did not violate due process. Id. The Court found to be weighty two reasons for delay: the initiation and determination of a petition for administrative remission, and the subsequent pendency of criminal proceedings. The Court was impressed with the district court’s assessment that the government had proceeded with “all due speed.” Id. 103 S.Ct. at 2014. The Court also relied on the fact that the claimant had never requested the institution of judicial proceedings, although she had requested a speedy determination of her petition for administrative remission. Finally, the Court noted that there was no showing of prejudice to the claimant in that she had not shown that “the delay affected her ability to defend the propriety of the forfeiture on the merits.” Id.

In the present case the delay in instituting judicial forfeiture proceedings was approximately 14 months. The government’s reasons for the major part of this delay were the pendency of a petition for administrative remission and the pendency of a criminal investigation. Claimant did not request the institution of judicial forfeiture proceedings and, indeed, petitioned for administrative remission after being advised that such a petition constituted a request that judicial proceedings be delayed. We originally held that neither the pendency of the administrative and criminal proceedings nor the behavior of the claimant justified the delay in initiating the forfeiture action. We also held that no showing of prejudice to the claimant was needed to establish a due process violation based on excessive delay. 689 F.2d at 860-61.

Without question, the decision of the Supreme Court in $8,850 totally erodes the foundations of our previous decision and requires that we withdraw it. Indeed, a reasonable argument can be made that the delay in $8,850 was more excessive under the circumstances than the delay in this case, and that $8,850 compels us to direct a judgment for the government on that issue. We think it inappropriate, however, to apply the Barker v. WingO test in the first instance in this court. The Supreme Court in $8,850 relied in part on the district court’s determination of the government’s diligence in attempting to move the administrative and criminal proceedings along. 103 S.Ct. at 2014. The Court also made it clear that the pendency of administrative or criminal proceedings did not automatically toll the time for instituting forfeiture ac *534 tions, but was simply a factor to be weighed, like the other Barker v. Wingo factors, in assessing the reasonableness of the delay. Such weighing and assessment should initially be done by the district court. The district court in the present case engaged in no Barker v. Wingo analysis, of course, because our decision in $8,850 was the law of the circuit and had not yet been reversed by the Supreme Court. We now vacate the district court’s judgment and remand so that the district court can undertake the analysis required by the Supreme Court’s decision in $8,850. The district court may then conduct any further appropriate proceedings following from its determination.

Our conclusion that- the district court’s ruling on excessive delay can no longer stand requires us to address for the first time two additional issues. The district court supported its summary judgment against the government on two further grounds, which the claimant initially urged on appeal in support of the judgment. Our previous disposition made it unnecessary to deal with those grounds, but we now must reach them.

The first ground was that, because claimant’s agents were denied entry into the United States at the border station, they never became subject to the requirement of 31 U.S.C. § 1101, now 31 U.S.C. § 5316, that they report currency in excess of $5,000. Section 1101(b) provided that the report had to be filed at the time and place the Secretary of the Treasury prescribed, and the applicable regulation required the report to be filed “at the time of entry into the United States.” 31 C.F.R. § 103.25 (1982). Similarly, § 1101(a)(1)(B) applied the reporting requirement to one transporting money “to a place in the United States from or through a place outside the United States.”

We think it is too narrow a construction of these provisions to hold, as the district court did, that they do not impose a reporting requirement on persons who present themselves at a port of entry, on United States soil, for the purposes of inspection and approval of entry into the United States. In our view, the statute and regulations clearly impose a duty to report at least by the time of inspection, and a failure to report at that time completes the violation.

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726 F.2d 532, 1984 U.S. App. LEXIS 25269, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-forty-seven-thousand-nine-hundred-eighty-dollars-ca9-1984.