Warrant to Seize One 1988 Chevrolet Monte Carlo, In re

• Decision Date: 14 September 1988
• Docket Number: No. 88-1304,88-1304
• Citation: 861 F.2d 307
• Parties: In re Application for WARRANT TO SEIZE ONE 1988 CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO and one 1987 Chevrolet Camaro. Appeal of UNITED STATES of America. . Heard
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit

Page 307

861 F.2d 307

In re Application for WARRANT TO SEIZE ONE 1988 CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO and one 1987 Chevrolet Camaro Appeal of UNITED STATES of America.

No. 88-1304.

United States Court of Appeals First Circuit.

Heard Sept. 14, 1988.

Decided Nov. 14, 1988.

Robert L. Ullmann, Asst. U.S. Atty., with whom Frank L. McNamara, Jr., U.S. Atty., was on brief for petitioner.

Before TORRUELLA and SELYA, Circuit Judges, and ATKINS, ^* Senior District Judge.

SELYA, Circuit Judge.

This appeal raises a single, straightforward question: can a district court issue warrants authorizing the seizure of automobiles for civil forfeiture where (i) probable cause has been shown, but (ii) no complaint in rem has been filed, (iii) the property has not been the subject of an earlier judgment, and (iv) no exigent circumstances exist? The United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts answered this inquiry in the negative and refused to underwrite the warrants. In re Application For Warrant, 677 F.Supp. 57 (D.Mass.1988). We reverse.

I

In late 1987, the government presented a warrant application and supporting affidavit to a United States magistrate, but did not file a complaint in rem prior thereto or simultaneous therewith (presumably because it sought to forfeit the property administratively rather than judicially). The affidavit set forth facts which the magistrate found met the jurisdictional requirements for administrative forfeiture under the drug laws. He also determined that there was probable cause to believe that two described motor vehicles were purchased with drug trafficking proceeds and were thus amenable to forfeiture under 21 U.S.C. Sec. 881(a)(6). The automobiles had not been the subject of an earlier judgment in favor of the United States. And there were no exigent circumstances.

The magistrate declined to authorize the warrants due to the lack of a complaint. The government objected. The district court upheld the magistrate. It ruled that to effectuate a non-exigent seizure, the government must file a complaint in rem as a prerequisite to obtaining a warrant. A timely notice of appeal followed.

II

In our estimation, this appeal is properly before us because the district court's denial of the seizure warrants was a final decision within the ambit of 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1291. Although we have found no case squarely in point, we take a "pragmatic approach ... in determining finality." Cox Broadcasting Corp. v. Cohn, 420 U.S. 469, 486, 95 S.Ct. 1029, 1042, 43 L.Ed.2d 328 (1975). After all, the circumstances are unexampled and the finality requirement under section 1291 should be given a "practical rather than a technical construction." Cohen v. Beneficial Industrial Loan Corp., 337 U.S. 541, 546, 69 S.Ct. 1221, 1226, 93 L.Ed. 1528 (1949).

Here, the application was not filed as a subset of some pending litigation, but itself comprised an independent, self-contained proceeding. The district court's refusal to grant it was, to all intents and purposes, the end of the line. The order resolved the whole of the matter. The sought-after warrants became a dead letter, unreviewable forever if not reviewable now. The district court's order, therefore, was entirely dispositive, hence "final" in the requisite section 1291 sense, hence appealable. Cf. Application of United States, 563 F.2d 637, 641 (4th Cir.1977) (denial of wiretap application appealable under 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1291); Application of United States, 427 F.2d 639, 642 (9th Cir.1970) (same). ¹

III

As amended by the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 (ADAA), Pub.L. No. 99-570, Sec. 1865, 100 Stat. 3207 (Oct. 27, 1986), the operative statute now reads in its entirety:

Any property subject to civil forfeiture to the United States under this subchapter may be seized by the Attorney General upon process issued pursuant to the Supplemental Rules for Certain Admiralty and Maritime Claims by any district court of the United States having jurisdiction over the property, except that seizure without such process may be made when--

(1) the seizure is incident to an arrest or a search under a search warrant or an inspection under an administrative inspection warrant;

(2) the property subject to seizure has been the subject of a prior judgment in favor of the United States in a criminal injunction or forfeiture proceeding under this subchapter;

(3) the Attorney General has probable cause to believe that the property is directly or indirectly dangerous to health or safety; or

(4) the Attorney General has probable cause to believe that the property is subject to civil forfeiture under this subchapter.

In the event of seizure pursuant to paragraph (3) or (4) of this subsection, proceedings under subsection (d) of this section shall be instituted promptly. The Government may request the issuance of a warrant authorizing the seizure of property subject to forfeiture under this section in the same manner as provided for a search warrant under the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure.

21 U.S.C. Sec. 881(b) (West 1988) (emphasis supplied). The relevant language states in essence that forfeitable property may be seized upon process issued pursuant to the Supplemental Admiralty Rules, not that property can only be seized pursuant to such process. By amending 21 U.S.C. Sec. 881(b) to add the underscored language, Congress plainly set off to increase the available options. The reference to the Criminal Rules seems unarguably a reference to Fed.R.Crim.P. 41, a rule which addresses in some detail the procedures for issuance of search warrants. It is beyond cavil that such warrants--so long as the other criteria for their issuance have been met--are often approved independent of any pending proceeding. The Criminal Rules do not necessitate filing of a complaint as a condition precedent to obtaining a search warrant.

In our view, this ends the matter. The Rule 41 paradigm must control, for the purport of the 1986 amendment is clear and unambiguous: the government may request a seizure warrant "in the same manner" as it may request a search warrant--and that manner does not include a complaint requirement. There is a "strong presumption that Congress expresses its intent through the language it chooses." INS v. Cardoza-Fonseca, 480 U.S. 421, 107 S.Ct. 1207, 1213 n. 12, 94 L.Ed.2d 434 (1987). Accordingly, the plain meaning of the statute conclusively settles the question, United States v. James, 478 U.S. 597, 106 S.Ct. 3116, 3121, 92 L.Ed.2d 483 (1986), unless there is some clearly expressed legislative intention to the contrary. See Hernandez Colon v. Secretary of Labor, 835 F.2d 958, 964 (1st Cir.1988). Here, there is none.

If this conclusion needs to be buttressed--and we think shoring up so solid a proposition is tantamount to delivering coal to Newcastle--we note that giving the amendment its ordinary denotation enhances the discernible policy objectives of the forfeiture laws, keeping civil forfeiture actions of a certain size (under $100,000) on the administrative rather than the judicial side. So read, the law conserves hard-pressed judicial resources and facilitates resort to the simpler, quicker, less expensive administrative procedure which Congress thought it advisable to formulate. ² To the contrary, the district court's reading of Sec. 881(b) would disserve this end and, in the bargain, produce the curious result that a vehicle seized under exigent circumstances or incident to arrest, without any judicial finding of probable cause (i.e., without a warrant), could be forfeited administratively; but if the government had first demonstrated probable cause for forfeiture to a judicial officer, it would be blocked from employing the device of administrative forfeiture and forced to engage the more cumbersome gears of judicial forfeiture. The district court, notwithstanding its endorsement of so unwieldy a construction, conceded that this result would be "illogical" and "not ... intended by our Nation's lawmakers." Application for Warrant, 677 F.Supp. at 60. Yet the court felt bound by circuit precedent to read the statute to require the filing of a complaint in the circumstances in question. Id. at 59. We disagree. The plain purport of the words counsels otherwise. And although the law is not always perfectly symmetrical--indeed, we have considerable sympathy with the district court's comment that "existing seizure laws are a procedural morass," id. at 60--we should not strain to achieve so inscrutable an outcome without compelling reason.

Moreover, despite the lack of any legislative history on the ADAA amendments to section 881(b), the congressional annals relating to the comparable provision in the money-laundering forfeiture statute (passed in the same session) make manifest an unmistakable intention to allow warranted seizures without prefiling in rem actions:

Property may be seized by the Attorney General or the Secretary of the Treasury upon process issued pursuant to the Supplemental Rules for Certain Admiralty and Maritime Claims (see Rule C in particular, last amended January 1, 1968) by a District Court of the United States having jurisdiction over the property. Seizure without such process may be made ... if the Attorney General or the Secretary of the Treasury has obtained a warrant under the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure.

H.R.Rep. No. 855, 99th Cong., 2d Sess., pt. 1, at 17 (1986) (emphasis supplied). We see this provision and the 1986 amendment to section 881(b) as being in pari passu; and the underscored precept holds true, we believe, under the latter law.

Before leaving this point, we remark that, effective August 1, 1985, Congress amended Rule C(3) of the Supplemental Rules for Certain Admiralty and Maritime Claims. The amendment decreed that verified complaints under the Rules should be reviewed by the district court before issuance of a warrant, "[e]xcept in actions by the United States for forfeitures for federal statutory...