United States v. Bradley
| Decision Date | 09 April 2019 |
| Docket Number | Case No. 3:15-cr-0037-2 |
| Parties | UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, v. BENJAMIN BRADLEY |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Middle District of Tennessee |
MEMORANDUM
Before the court is Benjamin Bradley's Motion to Dismiss the Forfeiture Allegations of the Indictment and Deny the Government's Request for a Money Judgment. (Doc. No. 1125.) For the reasons set forth herein, the motion will be denied.
In March 2015, the United States filed a two-count Indictment charging eighteen members of a drug trafficking ring, including Benjamin Bradley, with conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute and conspiracy to distribute Schedule II controlled substances, in violation of 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(a)(1) and 846 (Count One), and money laundering in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1956 (Count Two). (Doc. No. 3.) The Indictment also contained forfeiture allegations, giving notice that, upon conviction, the defendants would be jointly and severally responsible for forfeiting to the United States any "property constituting, or derived from, any proceeds obtained, directly or indirectly, as a result of" the conspiracy to distribute drugs, "including but not limited to a money judgment in an amount to be determined, representing the gross drug proceeds obtained as a result of such offense," and "any property used, or intended to be used, . . . to commit, or to facilitate the commission of, such violation," pursuant to 21 U.S.C. § 853(a)(1) and (2). (Doc. No. 3, at 5.) The Indictment further provided for the forfeiture of any real or personal property involved in the conspiracy to commit money laundering, "including but not limited to the proceeds of the violation and including but not limited to a money judgment in an amount to be determined" (Doc. No. 3, at 7), and for the forfeiture of substitute property in accordance with 21 U.S.C. § 853(p).
Bradley pleaded guilty to both counts. (Doc. No. 478.) The court sentenced him to serve seventeen years in prison and, after additional briefing, also ordered him to forfeit currency seized by police, several parcels of real property that he had used in the conspiracy, and up to a million dollars in cash (offset by the value of funds and property seized), on the grounds that Bradley obtained the real property with tainted funds or used it to facilitate his crimes, see 21 U.S.C. § 853(d), and that the gross proceeds of the drug-distribution and money-laundering schemes reached at least a million dollars, see id. § 853(a). The forfeiture order applied the million-dollar judgment jointly and severally to Bradley and "any other co-conspirator against whom a similar money judgment is taken." (Doc. No. 1005, at 1.) During the initial forfeiture proceedings, Bradley objected only to the forfeiture of one parcel of real property on which was located the house where his wife and minor children resided. He did not object to the money judgment or to joint and several liability.
Bradley appealed both the sentence and the order of forfeiture, raising, for the first time, an objection to joint and several liability based on the Supreme Court's decision in Honeycutt v. United States, 137 S. Ct. 1626 (2017). That decision, which was issued approximately two weeks before this court's forfeiture order, clarified that 21 U.S.C. § 853 bars joint and several liability for forfeiture judgments. Id. at 1632. In reviewing the appeal, the Sixth Circuit affirmed the prison sentence but vacated the forfeiture order in its entirety in light of Honeycutt. United States v. Bradley, 897 F.3d 779, 784 (6th Cir. 2018).1
Following issuance of the Mandate, this court conducted a status conference to permit the parties to discuss how to proceed following remand. There, the parties indicated both that they were having discussions about the possibility of resolving the forfeiture issue by a agreement and that the defendant intended to file a motion to dismiss the forfeiture allegations. (Doc. No. 1123.)
In accordance with the briefing schedule to which the parties agreed during the status conference, the defendant filed his present Motion to Dismiss the Forfeiture Allegations, along with a supporting Memorandum of Law. (Doc. No. 1125.) The government has filed its Response in Opposition to the Motion (Doc. No. 1128), and the defendant, with the court's permission, filed a Reply (Doc. No. 1134). The court has benefited substantially from the thorough and excellent briefing on the issues, for which both parties are commended.
In his motion, Bradley asks the court to dismiss the forfeiture allegations set forth in the Indictment altogether and to deny the government's request for a money judgment. (Doc. No. 1125, at 1.) In support of his motion, he makes two broad arguments: (1) that the Sixth Amendment bars the courts—as opposed to juries—from making factual findings to support criminal forfeiture; and (2) that a money judgment is not actually authorized by the forfeiture statute.
In Southern Union Co. v. United States, 567 U.S. 343 (2012), the Supreme Court extended the rule established by Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466 (2000), to hold that the courts are prohibited by Sixth Amendment considerations from imposing a criminal fine based on facts not contained in the jury's verdict or admitted by the defendant. Bradley asks this court to apply Southern Union to hold that the Sixth Amendment likewise bars forfeiture money judgments based on facts not contained in the jury's verdict or admitted by the defendant.
An apparently insurmountable barrier lies between this court and such a holding, however. In Libretti v. United States, 516 U.S. 29, 49 (1995), the Supreme Court held that "the right to a jury verdict on forfeitability does not fall within the Sixth Amendment's constitutional protection." Bradley attempts to circumvent that obstacle by arguing that Libretti has been misconstrued by every court that has considered it. He maintains that the quoted statement from Libretti is mere dictum and not part of, or necessary to, the Court's actual holding and, as dictum, is not binding on the lower courts. Thus, the argument proceeds, this court is free to apply Southern Union to this case.
In support of his contention that criminal forfeiture falls within the scope of Apprendi, Bradley argues that forfeiture is a mandatory criminal penalty rather than an "indeterminate and open-ended" scheme and, as such, that it falls within the scope of Apprendi and its progeny. Finally, Bradley contends that the historical record establishes that juries, for most of American history, decided forfeiture issues and that this remained the practice in the United States until 2000, when former Rule 31(e) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure was repealed and replaced by current Rule 32.2, which severely limits a defendant's right to a jury on the issue of forfeiture.
In the alternative to his constitutional argument, Bradley insists that the language of the forfeiture statute itself, 21 U.S.C. § 853, does not authorize money judgments; those courts holding otherwise over the past two decades are simply wrong; and the "plain language" of Honeycutt "undercuts" prior decisions allowing money judgments. (Doc. No. 1125, at 21.) He points out that a number of district courts have held that money judgments are not authorized by the statutes. He concedes that each of those opinions has been reversed on appeal, but, he says, the appellate decisions offer "no persuasive reason" for their reversals. (Id. at 23.)
In response to the defendant's Sixth Amendment argument, the government asserts that (1) the Supreme Court's statement in Libretti that "the right to a jury verdict on forfeitability does not fall within the Sixth Circuit's constitutional protection," 516 U.S. at 48-49, was not dictum but part of the holding and that binding Sixth Circuit precedent has construed Libretti thus; (2) even if Libretti were not dispositive of the issue, the Sixth Circuit has also held that the Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial does not extend to criminal forfeiture; (3) the Supreme Court's holding in Southern Union is not a contrary decision that requires modification of the prior Sixth Circuit holdings; (4) every circuit court of appeals to consider the issue has reached the same conclusion: that the Sixth Amendment right to a jury does not extend to forfeiture; (5) even if the court were to conclude that forfeiture statutes fall within the rule of Apprendi, the court would have to consider the history of criminal forfeiture to show that the right to a jury trial applies in this context, and the defendant is simply incorrect in stating that history supports his position; and (6) extending Apprendi to criminal forfeiture would pose serious practical problems in the administration of criminal justice. Finally, the government argues that, even if the Sixth Amendment applied in this context, Bradley waived his right to a jury trial on this issue, and, even if the issue were adequately preserved, dismissal is not the appropriate remedy in this case.
Regarding the statutory argument, the government maintains that the defendant waived the issue by not raising it previously, such that it is not part of the remand. The government also contends that, regardless of waiver, every court to consider the question has held that the applicable forfeiture statute, 21 U.S.C. § 853(p), authorizes forfeiture money judgments; Rule 32.2 reflects the same understanding; and Honeycutt does not change the analysis.
In vacating the court's forfeiture order in its entirety—not merely the money judgment aspect of it—and remanding, the Sixth Circuit made it clear that the parties would begin again with a clean slate:
[The question of whether the Sixth Circuit prohibits the imposition of criminal forfeiture absent a supporting admission or jury verdict] is an unanswered question in this circuit....
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