Thompson v. Covington
Decision Date | 15 February 1995 |
Docket Number | No. 94-2254,94-2254 |
Citation | 47 F.3d 974 |
Parties | Douglas Wayne THOMPSON, Appellant, v. Jeffrey L. COVINGTON, FBI Agent at Kansas City, Missouri; Walter C. Weber, FBI Special Agent at Kansas City, Missouri, Appellees. |
Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit |
Appellant pro se.
Alleen S. Castellani, Asst. U.S. Atty., Kansas City, MO, for appellee.
Before FAGG, MAGILL, and BEAM, Circuit Judges.
Douglas Wayne Thompson appeals the district court's dismissal with prejudice of his civil action seeking the return of his property from two Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents. We remand to the district court with directions to vacate its order and dismiss the case without prejudice.
Thompson, a federal inmate, pleaded guilty in 1989 in the District of Minnesota to bank robbery, conspiracy to commit bank robbery, possession of a firearm during a crime of violence, and interstate transportation of a firearm; we affirmed his conviction on direct appeal, and also affirmed the denial of his subsequent 28 U.S.C. Sec. 2255 motion. United States v. Thompson, 906 F.2d 1292, 1295 & n. 6 (8th Cir.), cert. denied, 498 U.S. 989, 111 S.Ct. 530, 112 L.Ed.2d 540 (1990); Thompson v. United States, 7 F.3d 1377 (8th Cir.1993) (per curiam), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 114 S.Ct. 1383, 128 L.Ed.2d 58 and --- U.S. ----, 114 S.Ct. 1556, 128 L.Ed.2d 204 (1994).
In September 1992, Thompson brought this action in the Western District of Missouri against the FBI agents alleging that, in 1988, they seized some of Thompson's property in Kansas City during the investigation of his criminal case. Defendants asserted that the property was inventoried in Kansas City and some of it was then sent to the FBI office in Minneapolis. Although Thompson alleged that the seizure violated his constitutional rights, he sought as relief only the return of his property--in particular, some of his legal papers. Defendants represented that, after this suit was filed, they searched for the property but could not find it. The district court concluded that Thompson's constitutional claims failed on their merits, granted defendants' motion to substitute the United States as defendant in any common-law tort claim for monetary damages under the Federal Tort Claims Act, 28 U.S.C. Secs. 2671-2680, and concluded that it lacked subject-matter jurisdiction because Thompson had not filed a timely administrative claim with the FBI. The court thus granted defendants' motion to dismiss the case with prejudice under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1).
Drevlow v. Lutheran Church, Mo. Synod, 991 F.2d 468, 470 (8th Cir.1993) (footnote and citation omitted).
Post-conviction filings for the return of property seized in connection with a criminal case are treated as civil equitable actions, and the district court where the claimant was tried has subject-matter jurisdiction ancillary to its criminal jurisdiction to hear the equitable action. See Rufu v. United States, 20 F.3d 63, 65 (2d Cir.1994) (per curiam) (...
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