Wilson v. United States

• Decision Date: 03 December 1980
• Docket Number: No. 79-890.,79-890.
• Parties: Robert Leon WILSON, Appellant, v. UNITED STATES, Appellee.
• Court: D.C. Court of Appeals

424 A.2d 130

Robert Leon WILSON, Appellant, v. UNITED STATES, Appellee.

No. 79-890.

District of Columbia Court of Appeals.

Argued May 6, 1980.

Decided December 3, 1980.

Melvin A. Marshall, Washington, D. C., for appellant.

Richard C. Bicki, Asst. U. S. Atty., Washington, D. C., with whom Charles F. C. Ruff, U. S. Atty., and John A. Terry, Peter E. George, Michael S. Pasano, Melvyn H. Rappaport and Steven C. Tabackman, Asst. U. S. Attys., Washington, D. C., were on brief, for appellee.

Before KERN, NEBEKER and HARRIS, Associate Judges.

HARRIS, Associate Judge:

Appellant entered an Alford plea¹ to a charge of possession of narcotics in violation of D.C.Code 1973, § 33-402. When he subsequently moved for the return of money which had been seized from him at the time of his arrest, the trial court determined that it could not order the return of appellant's property because what the court considered to be the proper parties, the police and the District of Columbia, were not before it. The trial court granted the motion, however, as it related to the United States. Appellant challenges the trial court's ruling that the District government is an indispensable party to a motion for the return of property seized in connection with a criminal proceeding. We agree with appellant and conclude that the trial court — with the United States before it as a party — had the power to order the police property clerk to return money which the court might determine to be appellant's. Accordingly, we remand the case in order that the trial court may rule dispositively on appellant's motion.

I

On August 3, 1978, appellant was charged by information with the sale of a narcotic drug in violation of D.C.Code 1973, § 33-402. This followed a narcotics transaction the day before in which an undercover officer purchased a Dilaudid pill from appellant with $35 in marked police funds. Moments after the sale, appellant was arrested and searched.² The police recovered the $35 in police funds plus an additional $51 from appellant's person; no narcotics were found. On July 2, 1979, appellant entered his Alford plea to the lesser-included offense of narcotics possession.

On August 1, 1979, the trial court held a hearing on appellant's motion for return of the money which was seized from his person.³ Because the United States did not file a timely opposition to appellant's motion, the trial court treated the motion as conceded as it related to the United States. However, although the court found it speculative to conclude that the money which appellant sought to recover was related to other narcotics transactions, it refrained from ordering the money returned since it believed that the proper parties, i. e., the police and the District of Columbia, were not before the court.

II

We recognize that trial judges are often somewhat uncertain — and with good reason — as to the reach of the trial court's jurisdiction over post-conviction motions for the return of seized property. In fact, the problem is not always cast in terms of jurisdiction. As the experienced trial judge in this case noted:

THE COURT: Well, I'm not saying I don't have jurisdiction. I'm saying that whether I do or don't the proper party that has the money, to wit, the police, are not before me. And the United States Attorney does not represent the police department.

We conclude that, for the purpose of resolving a post-conviction motion to return property, the United States does, in effect, represent the police department. That is, the trial court has personal jurisdiction to rule on the motion when the United States is before it. Moreover, the trial court has subject matter jurisdiction over such a motion; its jurisdiction is concurrent with that of the property clerk under D.C.Code 1973, §§ 4-151 et seq.

The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has ruled that "the district court has both the jurisdiction and duty to return" property seized in connection with a criminal proceeding once the proceeding has terminated and the property is no longer pertinent to a criminal prosecution. United States v. Wilson, 176 U.S.App.D.C. 321, 324, 540 F.2d 1100, 1103 (1976). Accord, United States v. Hubbard, (D.C.Cir., No. 79-2312, July 24, 1980, slip op. at 21); United States v. Wright, 197 U.S.App.D.C. 411, 415-16, 610 F.2d 930, 934-35 (1979). We see no reason why the rationale of those cases should not apply in our court system.⁴ Wilson has been followed in other jurisdictions which have considered the issue. E. g., United States v. Premises Known as 608 Taylor Avenue, 584 F.2d 1297 (3d Cir. 1978); United States v. Palmer, 565 F.2d 1063 (9th Cir. 1977); United States v. LaFatch, 565 F.2d 81 (6th Cir. 1977), cert. denied sub nom. LaFatch v. MM Corp., 435 U.S. 971, 98 S.Ct. 1611, 56 L.Ed.2d 62 (1978); United States v. Totaro, 468 F.Supp. 1045 (D.Md. 1979); United States v. Ortega, 450 F.Supp. 211 (S.D.N.Y.1978). It has been followed in principle in state courts as well. See, e. g., People v. Stewart, 38 Colo.App. 6, 553 P.2d 74 (1976), aff'd, 193 Colo. 399, 566 P.2d 1069 (1977) (en banc) (once the state had alleged that funds which were seized from the defendant at the time of arrest and which were in the possession of the arresting authorities at the conclusion of criminal proceedings were the fruits of illegal activity, the criminal trial court had jurisdiction to determine whether the property should be returned to the defendant under the inherent power of the court to control and prevent the abuse of its processes); People v. Hopkins, 44 Cal.App.3d 326, 118 Cal.Rptr. 683 (1975) (under some circumstances, a trial court has jurisdiction under its inherent power to control property seized for the court's use to order the police to return to a defendant property seized as evidence of crime); People v. Hernandez, 52 Mich.App. 56, 216 N.W.2d 438 (1974) (criminal defendants who sought the return of seized property properly did so within context of the criminal case, and the court properly directed the order to return to those police officers who had seized the property).

Consistent with such precedent, we adopt the position that the Superior Court has jurisdiction after a criminal trial to rule on a motion to return property which had been seized in connection with the prosecution. "It makes for an economy of judicial effort to have the matter disposed of in the criminal proceeding by the judge that tried the case." United States v. Wilson, supra, 176 U.S.App.D.C. at 325, 540 F.2d at 1104; accord, United States v. LaFatch, supra, 565 F.2d at 83 ("[t]he interests of judicial efficiency dictate that the problem should be resolved by the criminal trial court.") Considerations of judicial economy apply with equal force to a case, such as this, which culminates in a guilty plea. Here, as in United States v. Ortega, supra, the trial judge became familiar with the facts and circumstances of the case in the process of taking the plea and in pronouncing sentence on appellant. "Thus, the assignment of this application to another judge of this court as a separate civil case would be a needless waste of judicial time and energy." Id., 450 F.Supp. at 212. See also People v. Stewart, supra (trial court had jurisdiction to determine whether funds seized at time of defendant's arrest should be returned to defendant following his guilty plea).

The existence of separate civil remedies does not prevent the trial court from ordering (or denying) the return of property in the criminal case, if the latter route is selected by the defendant in a particular case. Our property clerk statute, enacted during the Civil War and last amended in 1970, was designed to authorize the police property clerk to return property upon application by a rightful claimant and to protect the clerk from liability should he mistakenly return property to the wrong person. D.C. Code 1973, §§ 4-151 et seq.; see H.Rep. No. 377, 77th Cong., 1st Sess. (1941). The statute was not intended to deprive the local court of any of its substantive or ancillary jurisdiction, especially since "[d]etermination of title to personal property is basically a judicial function."⁵ In other words, the property clerk statute is not exclusive, United States v. Wright, supra; United States v. Wilson, supra, and the existence of civil remedies does not defeat the criminal trial court's jurisdiction. United States v. Totaro, supra; People v. Hernandez, supra; People v. Superior Court, Orange County, 28 Cal.App.3d 600, 104 Cal.Rptr. 876 (1972).⁶

We further conclude that the Superior Court has personal jurisdiction to rule on a post-conviction motion for the return of property when the United States is before it. For the purpose of such a motion, the United States represents the government of the District of Columbia and its police. As correctly noted in Goode v. Markley, 195 U.S.App.D.C. 391, 394, 603 F.2d 973, 976 (1979), cert. denied, 444 U.S. 1083, 100 S.Ct. 1039, 62 L.Ed.2d 768 (1980), lain crimes prosecuted under the District of Columbia Code are maintained in the name of the United States . . . The [Court Reform] Act[⁷] did not vitiate the essential character of the District of Columbia as an arm of the sovereign United States." (Citations omitted). In its role as an arm of the United States in any criminal prosecution arising out of a violation of the District of Columbia Code, the police department (albeit an agency of the District of Columbia government) holds seized property as agent for, and subject to the direction of, the trial court under whose authority it was seized. See United States v. Wright, supra, 197 U.S.App.D.C. at 419-20, 610 F.2d at 938-39 (whoever holds property seized from a defendant at the time of arrest does so as agent for, and subject to an order of, the United States District Court for the District of Columbia); accord, United States v. Wilson, supra. In Wright, the court rejected the...