Com. v. One (1) 1984 Z-28 Camaro Coupe

• Decision Date: 20 May 1992
• Docket Number: Z-28
• Citation: 530 Pa. 523,610 A.2d 36
• Parties: COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania, Appellee, v. ONE (1) 1984CAMARO COUPE and Cheryl Stuck and Kenneth A. Stuck, Jr., Appellants.
• Court: Pennsylvania Supreme Court

Page 36

610 A.2d 36

530 Pa. 523

COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania, Appellee, v. ONE (1) 1984 Z-28 CAMARO COUPE and Cheryl Stuck and Kenneth A. Stuck, Jr., Appellants.

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.

Argued Dec. 5, 1991.

Decided May 20, 1992.

[530 Pa. 524] Peter T. Campana, Williamsport, David M. McGlaughlin, Philadelphia, for amicus, Pa. Assoc. of Crim. Defense Lawyers.

Robert B. Sacavage, Dist. Atty., Guy L. Ciarrocchi, Deputy Atty. Gen., Mary Benefield Seiverling, Harrisburg, for amicus, Atty. Gen.

Ronald Eisenberg, Deputy Dist. Atty., George S. Leone, Philadelphia, for amicus, Pa. D.A. Assoc.

Before NIX, C.J., and LARSEN, FLAHERTY, McDERMOTT, ZAPPALA, PAPADAKOS, and CAPPY, JJ.

OPINION OF THE COURT

FLAHERTY, Justice.

The issue raised by this case is whether the owner of property subject to forfeiture under the Controlled Substances Forfeitures Act ¹ is entitled to a jury trial pursuant to Article 1, § 6 of the Pennsylvania Constitution. ² For the reasons that follow, we hold that jury trials are required when demanded by claimants in forfeiture actions brought pursuant to the Controlled Substances Forfeitures Act.

The property at issue in this case is a 1984 Z-28 Camaro automobile, which was allegedly purchased using proceeds from the illegal sale of drugs and which was allegedly used to store illegal drugs. On January 12, 1989, the Commonwealth filed a petition for forfeiture and condemnation in the Court of Common Pleas of Northumberland County seeking forfeiture of the 1984 Camaro pursuant to the Controlled Substances Forfeiture Act. The Stucks, appellants herein, then filed a claim to the vehicle and demanded a jury trial. The trial court granted the request for a jury trial, but subsequently granted the Commonwealth's motion for certification of the case as appropriate for interlocutory appeal on the question of whether a jury trial was required. Commonwealth Court granted the Commonwealth's petition for permission to appeal, and after argument reversed the trial court's order requiring a jury trial. The Stucks petitioned for allowance of appeal and this Court granted allocatur.

Commonwealth Court held that the right to a jury trial in a controlled substance forfeiture proceeding is not required by the statute, is not suggested in legislative history or by legislative treatment of other forfeiture acts, and is not expressly guaranteed by the constitution or based in common law. It concluded, therefore, that there is no right to a jury trial in this case.

Commonwealth Court observed that this court has interpreted Pennsylvania's constitutional requirement that "trial by jury shall be as heretofore, and the right thereof remain inviolate," Art. 1, § 6, Pa.Const., to mean that jury trial rights existing when the constitution was adopted were preserved, Byers v. Commonwealth, 42 Pa. 89 (1862), and that jury trials are required in every case where one would have been required in 1790, when the Pennsylvania Constitution was adopted. William Goldman Theatres v. Dana, 405 Pa. 83, 173 A.2d 59 (1961). ³

The Commonwealth argues that Article 1, § 6 of the Pennsylvania Constitution requires a jury trial only where the common law provided for a jury trial in 1790. This case, according to the Commonwealth, involves proceedings created by statute subsequent to 1790, not by the common law, and in such proceedings, jury trials are required only if the legislature has expressly provided for them. The legislature has not provided for a jury trial in this case. Since there is, according to the Commonwealth, a statutory basis but no common law basis for the action, there is no requirement of a jury trial. This would be true even if forfeiture actions were tried before juries in 1790, for statutory actions are not part of the common law, and only common law actions involving jury trials are implicated by Article 1, § 6 of the Pennsylvania Constitution. See Murphy v. Cartex Corp.:

[I]t has long been recognized that the Pennsylvania Constitution [Article 1, § 6] 'only preserves the right to trial by jury in those cases where it existed at the time the Constitution was adopted.' W.J. Dillner Co. v. Pa. Public Utilities Comm., 191 Pa.Superior Ct. 136, 149, 155 A.2d 429, 435 (1959). Jury trials are not available in proceedings created by statute unless the proceeding has a common law basis or unless the statute expressly or impliedly so provides. See, appeal of Watson, 377 Pa. 495, 105 A.2d 576 (1954).

377 Pa.Super. 181, 192, 546 A.2d 1217, 1222 (1988).

Stucks argue that in proceedings created by statute, a jury trial is available when the proceeding has a common law basis, Appeal of Watson, 377 Pa. 495, 105 A.2d 576 (1954); that in rem forfeiture proceedings existed at common law, and that the owner of property was entitled to a jury trial in these proceedings, United States v. One 1976 Mercedes Benz 280 S, 618 F.2d 453 (7th Cir.1980); and that the exigencies of the current war on drugs should not be utilized to deny constitutional rights.

We agree with the Commonwealth that there is no statutory requirement for a jury trial in this case. The question, then, becomes whether jury trials were required in forfeiture proceedings in 1790, and if so, whether there is a common law basis for the proceeding.

As to the first question, whether jury trials were required in forfeiture actions in 1790, our research indicates that in 1782, the case of Wilcox v. Henry, 1 Dall. 68, 1 L.Ed. 41 (Pa., 1782), a forfeiture case, was before the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania. The case involved the question of whether salt which had been brought to Philadelphia during the British occupation of that city, but then sold to an American citizen, should be forfeited to the United States after the American army recaptured Philadelphia. The government's theory was that the salt was the property of an enemy (the original owner) and not an American because the contract of sale provided that the salt was to be paid for only after the American army arrived in Philadelphia, and then only on the condition that the salt was not destroyed. This meant, according to the government, that the salt was still the property of a British national when American troops arrived and that it was, therefore, forfeit. The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania tried the case to a jury, which held for the owner of the salt. We conclude from this that a property owner was entitled to a jury trial in forfeiture actions in 1790, at least as to goods seized on land ⁴ where there is an issue as to whether the seized goods are contraband. ⁵

The next question is whether the forfeiture action in this case has a common law basis. The term "common law basis" does not, in the context of this case, mean that the action originated at common law, for even prior to 1790, forfeiture actions were of statutory origin. See, e.g., The Judiciary Act of 1789, 1 Stat. 73. Rather, "common law basis" refers to the nature of the proceeding in common law courts such as the Court of Exchequer, but not courts of Admiralty or Chancery. ⁶ Long before the American Revolution, English Admiralty courts, for example, heard forfeiture cases without a jury, but where common law courts (Courts of Exchequer) had jurisdiction to hear forfeiture cases, as in cases involving forfeitures on land, where there is an issue as to whether the seized goods are contraband, the cases were, according to common law tradition heard by the court sitting with a jury. See C.J. Hendry Co. v. Moore, 318 U.S. 133, 63 S.Ct. 499, 87 L.Ed. 663 (1943). ⁷

Mr. Justice Stone in C.J. Hendry Co. v. Moore described forfeiture practice in colonial America:

The common law as it was received in the United States at the time of the adoption of the Constitution did not afford a remedy in rem in suits between private persons.... But to the generalization that a judgment in rem was not a common law remedy there is an important exception. Forfeiture to the Crown of the offending object, because it had been used in violation of law, by a procedure in rem was a practice familiar not only to the English admiralty courts but to the Court of Exchequer. The Exchequer gave such a remedy for the forfeiture of articles seized on land for the violation of law.... Such suits in the Exchequer were begun on information and were against the vessel or article to be condemned.

* * * * * *

Separate courts exercising the jurisdiction of the Court of Exchequer were never established in the American Colonies. Instead, that jurisdiction was absorbed by the common law courts which entertained suits for the forfeiture of property under English or local statutes authorizing its condemnation. Long before the adoption of the Constitution the common law courts in the Colonies--and later in the states during the period of Confederation--were exercising jurisdiction in rem in the enforcement of forfeiture statutes. Like the Exchequer, in cases of seizure on navigable waters they exercised a jurisdiction concurrently with the courts of admiralty. But the vice-admiralty courts in the Colonies did not begin to function with any real continuity until about 1700 or shortly afterward.... By that time, the jurisdiction of common law courts to condemn ships and cargoes for violation of the Navigation Acts had been firmly established, apparently without question, and was regularly exercised throughout the colonies. In general the suits were brought against the vessel or article to be condemned, were tried by jury, closely followed the procedure in Exchequer, and if successful resulted in judgments of forfeiture or condemnation with a provision for sale.

* * * * * *

The Court has never held or said that the admiralty jurisdiction in a forfeiture case is exclusive, and it has repeatedly declared that, in cases of forfeiture of articles seized on land for violation of federal statutes, the district courts proceed as courts of common law according to the course of the Exchequer on...