U.S. v. Carrell

• Decision Date: 29 May 2001
• Docket Number: No. 99-14481,99-14481
• Citation: 252 F.3d 1193
• Parties: (11th Cir. 2001) UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. SCOTTIE LYNELL CARRELL, Claimant-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit

Page 1193

252 F.3d 1193 (11th Cir. 2001)

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. SCOTTIE LYNELL CARRELL, Claimant-Appellee.

No. 99-14481.

IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT.

May 29, 2001.

[Copyrighted Material Omitted]

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Alabama D. C. Docket No. 98-00907-CV-PT-NE

Before TJOFLAT and BIRCH, Circuit Judges, and VINING^*, District Judge.

BIRCH, Circuit Judge:

This appeal requires us to determine whether the statute of limitations had expired before the government brought a civil in rem forfeiture action on properties procured with proceeds from drug transactions. The district judge decided that the government should have known earlier that the properties, titled in the names of the drug offender's ex-wife and son, were purchased with drug money and dismissed the case with prejudice. We REVERSE and REMAND.

I. BACKGROUND

Since the 1980's, the government had been investigating Homer Lynell Carrell, father of claimant-appellee Scottie Lynell Carrell, for drug trafficking. In 1985, Homer Carrell purchased one of the parcels at issue in this case from Lonnie Green for $10,000 in cash. Because he was about to commence a prison sentence for drug trafficking, Homer Carrell told Green not to execute a deed to him. Consequently, this property remained in Green's name until 1990, when Homer Carrell instructed Green to execute and deliver the deed to his ex-wife, Elsie Keith,¹ and his son, Scottie Carrell.

Homer Carrell purchased the second parcel of land from Jimmy Robinson in exchange for sixteen used automobiles. Title was placed in the names of Elsie Keith and Scottie. Both deeds were recorded properly in the Jackson County, Alabama, land records in August, 1990. After an indictment alleging that, in July, 1992, Homer Carrell had intimidated a federal witness who was providing information regarding the investigation of his drug trafficking activities to a federal grand jury, was returned on September 7, 1992, Carrell fled the jurisdiction. He remained a fugitive until his arrest in Tennessee in March, 1998.

On May 3, 1993, the government seized a 147-acre farm in Jackson County that Homer Carrell had inherited from his mother. The government alleged in its complaint that the farm was subject to forfeiture on the same grounds as those in this complaint.² The two properties at issue in this case were transferred to Scottie Carrell by February 2, 1995 deeds that were duly recorded in the Jackson County land records.

The government filed an in rem civil forfeiture action against the two defendant parcels on December 23, 1996. On motion of Scottie Carrell, the sole claimant, the complaint was dismissed without prejudice based upon our former panel decision in United States v. 408 Peyton Road, S.W., 112 F.3d 1106 (11th Cir. 1997), vacated, 133 F.3d 1378 (11th Cir.), aff'd on reh'g, 162 F.3d 644 (11th Cir. 1998) (en banc), cert. denied, 526 U.S. 1089, 119 S.Ct. 1500 (1999).³ Scottie also raised the issue that the statute of limitations had expired, but that issue was not addressed given the disposition of the case.

On March 19, 1998, fugitive Homer Carrell was arrested in Tennessee. The government filed this civil forfeiture action against the defendant real properties under 18 U.S.C. § 981(a)(1)(A) and 21 U.S.C. § 881(a)(6) on 16 April 1998. In its complaint, the government alleged that Homer Carrell, a known drug dealer and fugitive from justice, purchased the first defendant parcel in 1985 and the second defendant parcel in 1990 with proceeds from his unlawful cocaine and marijuana trafficking. The complaint further stated that Homer Carrell placed title for each property in the names of his ex-wife and son for concealment, all in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1956, which subjected the properties to forfeiture under 18 U.S.C. § 981(a)(1)(A) and 21 U.S.C. § 881(a)(6). On the government's motion, a magistrate judge entered a warrant for the arrest of the defendant properties on May 4, 1998. This warrant directed the United States Marshal for the Northern District of Alabama to post the warrant of arrest on the defendant properties and to give appropriate notice to all potential claimants. Special agents of the United States Customs Service executed the warrant of arrest by posting a copy on the defendant real properties, and they executed service of notice and the complaint on all interested parties.

As in the first forfeiture proceeding, Scottie Carrell, as sole claimant, denied any knowledge of drug activity being connected with the properties. He again alleged that the properties were seized unlawfully by the government and that the forfeiture action was barred by the applicable five-year statute of limitations in 19 U.S.C. § 1621. He further moved to dismiss the government's forfeiture complaint with prejudice.

Following the government's response, the magistrate judge conducted a hearing on the motion to dismiss. The hearing included testimony from Elsie Keith and Scottie. Thereafter, the magistrate judge entered his report and recommendation, in which he determined that the forfeiture action was barred by the five-year statute of limitations. He concluded that the two parcels were not concealed because the respective deeds were on public record in 1990. Therefore, the magistrate judge recommended that the forfeiture action against the defendant real properties be dismissed with prejudice.

The government objected to the magistrate judge's report and recommendation on two bases. First, the government argued that the five-year limitations period under § 1621 did not begin to run until the government's discovery of the involvement of the defendant properties with Homer Carrell's drug crimes and that the discovery was revealed by an investigation that occurred in April, 1996. Second, the government contended that it was required to possess probable cause that Homer Carrell was linked to the two defendant properties before it could be said to have discovered the crime, which did not occur until the 1996 investigation. It is the government's position that the time when the defendant properties were titled in names other than Homer Carrell constituted concealment, which must be excluded in calculating the limitations period under § 1621.

In a memorandum opinion, the district judge stated that "the relevant issue is when the Government 'knew or should have known of the alleged offense and the availability of forfeiture.'" R1-19-3. The judge determined that the government, by searching the county property title records, "could have discovered the situation through an investigation of the real property holdings of Carrell's son and ex-wife." Id. at 6. Consequently, the district judge adopted the magistrate judge's recommendation and dismissed the government's forfeiture action with prejudice. This appeal followed.

II. DISCUSSION

In an appeal from an in rem civil forfeiture pursuant to § 881(a)(6), we review the district judge's factual findings for clear error, and plenary review is the standard for the conclusions of law. United States v. 15603 85th Ave. N., 933 F.2d 976, 979 (11th Cir. 1991). "In this circuit, the existence of probable cause to support a forfeiture is a matter of law, and thus subject to plenary review on appeal." United States v. Four Million, Two Hundred Fifty-five Thousand, 762 F.2d 895, 903 n.17 (11th Cir. 1985). Since it is a question of law, we review a district judge's interpretation and application of a statute of limitations de novo. Harrison v. Digital Health Plans, 183 F.3d 1235, 1238 (11th Cir. 1999) (per curiam).

In statutory construction, "the plain meaning of the statute controls unless the language is ambiguous or leads to absurd results." United States v. McLymont, 45 F.3d 400, 401 (11th Cir. 1995) (per curiam). Nevertheless, "this plain-meaning rule should not be applied to produce a result which is actually inconsistent with the policies underlying the statute." Bailey v. USX Corp., 850 F.2d 1506, 1509 (11th Cir. 1988). "A rule of law that is the product of judicial interpretation of a vague, ambiguous, or incomplete statutory provision is no less binding than a rule that is based on the plain meaning of a statute." Golden State Transit Corp. v. City of Los Angeles, 493 U.S. 103, 112, 110 S.Ct. 444, 451 (1989); see Rickard v. Auto Publisher, Inc., 735 F.2d 450, 455 (11th Cir. 1984) ("One reliable indicium of the clarity of Congress' language is consistent judicial interpretation of the provision in question.").

The operative statute of limitations provides:

"No suit or action to recover . . . any pecuniary penalty or forfeiture of property accruing under the customs laws shall be instituted unless such suit or action is commenced within five years after the time when the alleged offense was discovered; except that . . . . the time . . . of any concealment . . . of the property[] shall not be reckoned within the 5-year period of limitation."⁴

19 U.S.C. §§ 1621 & (2); see United States v. James Daniel Good Real Property, 510 U.S. 43, 63, 114 S.Ct. 492, 505-06 (1993) (recognizing that § 1621 of the customs laws is the applicable statute of limitations for a civil forfeiture proceeding). Thus, the plain language of the statute states that the limitations period begins to run upon discovery of the "alleged offense." Id. While "offender" in statutory language generally refers to a human actor, which would implicate in personam theories of limitation, the Supreme Court has clarified that, in civil in rem forfeiture cases, the property is defined as the "offender," which "has a venerable history in our case law."⁵ Austin v. United States, 509 U.S. 602, 615 113 S.Ct. 2801, 2808 (1993); see United States v. One Assortment of 89 Firearms, 465 U.S. 354, 363, 104 S.Ct. 1099, 1105 (1984) ("In contrast to the in personam nature of criminal actions, actions in rem have traditionally...