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Appeals Court Says Woman Can Continue To Sue Over $8,000 Civil Forfeiture

from the gov't-doesn't-always-get-away-with-it dept

Just fucking weird. Seems illegal. How do we get away with this in a constitutional republic? Rights exist. And et cetera.

Those are the responses that tend to be generated by anyone attempting to explain civil asset forfeiture to normal people who just assume the government needs to prove something, anything before taking money (or other property) away from people who’ve done nothing more than interacted with law enforcement officers.

Civil asset forfeiture disrupts justice. Officers will claim any cash they take must be the proceeds of illegal activity (most often, drug dealing). They will not have to make their case against the property owner. Instead, they file motions against the seized property — inanimate objects incapable of defending themselves in court. And, with the deliberate refusal to bring criminal charges against the property’s owner, law enforcement ensures victims of this form of government theft won’t even have access to a public defender.

So, it’s on the people whose money has been seized to make all the moves. The government does a little bit of administrative paperwork, fully funded by tax dollars. Victims of civil forfeiture must spend their own money to secure the return of the their own money — a process made deliberately difficult by rules enacted by the same government that took their money away.

But there’s a bit of good news here. The Institute for Justice reports an appellate level court (the Second Circuit, to be exact) has handed down a decision that might make it a bit easier for citizens to fight back against civil asset forfeiture.

Today, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals held thata Rochester woman is entitled to make her case in front of a judge nearly three years after Rochester Police took more than $8,000 from her without charging her with a crime.

Cristal Starling previously lost her $8,000 when—representing herself in her civil forfeiture case—she missed one of several deadlines to contest the forfeiture. Cristal appealed, represented by the Institute for Justice (IJ), and the 2nd Circuit held that Cristal should not lose her money forever because of a single missed deadline.

“Today’s decision will have important consequences for civil forfeiture victims who are trying to navigate complicated forfeiture procedures, often without help from a lawyer,” said IJ Senior Attorney Rob Johnson. “If the government wants to take your money, they should have to prove you did something wrong—not trip you up with legal procedures.”

It’s a good decision [PDF]. As noted in the IJ’s reporting, the Second Circuit made this despite Starling having missed a deadline. That matters. The government has all the time and money in the world to take things from people. It also has experts and experienced lawyers to ensure the deck remains stacked against regular people.

The government shouldn’t have all the advantages, especially since it never gambles with its own money. Citizens should be given a bit more slack, since they don’t have access to the expertise and unlimited resources the government has. A missed deadline should mean something when the government does it. When it’s someone who had their money stolen just because cops suspected Starling’s boyfriend was a drug dealer, they should be given a bit more leeway to reclaim money the government never bothered to prove was actually the proceeds of illegal activity.

The opinion also points out that the raid on Starling’s apartment (during which officers walked off with $8,000) led to nothing at all. Her then-boyfriend was criminally charged, but he was acquitted of all charges later, meaning there wasn’t even a criminal act that justified the allegations made by the DEA against Starling’s money.

Starling tried to get her money back. But, of course, she was fighting against a system designed from the ground up to frustrate victims of civil forfeiture. She filed a claim for the money but apparently was never notified of the administrative proceedings, resulting in a default judgment in favor of the DEA. Following this, Starling sent several letters to the court handling the matter about the case. These were ignored. And the lower court said the letters were not an acceptable replacement for the required paperwork.

Starling claimed the lower court used the wrong standard, viewing her attempts to regain possession of her money as “neglectful,” rather than simply the good faith efforts of a non-lawyer to navigate a labyrinthine system designed to separate citizens from their property.

The Appeals Court agrees with Starling: this is the wrong standard.

We vacate the default judgment. The district court read Starling’s pro se letters too narrowly as a motion to file an untimely claim, ignoring Starling’s request to lift the entry of default. Viewed properly as a motion seeking both forms of relief, we hold that the good cause standard applies and is satisfied.

The government wants anything that isn’t perfectly procedural to be considered deficient enough to give it a win without having to earn it. This opinion says that standard is too exacting to be just… you know, as in the term “justice.”

Notably, Starling acted after she found out her boyfriend had been acquitted. Most normal people would take that to mean the government no longer had any reason to believe the seized funds were the result of criminal activity. The government ignored this entirely and simply claimed her attempt to reclaim her money happened too late, refusing to even address the central argument of her letters to the court.

What this decision does is alter the contours for people challenging civil forfeitures. When someone receives information that makes it clear the government can no longer credibly claim the seized property is related to criminal activity, the property owners should be able to set aside judgments in favor of the government even if their attempts to address the court fall outside of the normal time limits. Just because something comes in late doesn’t mean it’s (in the legal sense of the word) “neglect.” The counterarguments presented by property owners should be considered a “good cause” showing if they have any merit.

That means the government can’t walk off with property just because it held onto it long enough to file a motion for final judgment. This makes the deck a little less stacked against property owners who not only have fewer legal resources than the government, but also fewer resources overall since the government has taken (at least temporary) possession of those funds as well.

Filed Under: 2nd circuit, asset forfeiture, civil asset forfeiture, cristal starling, legalized theft