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Court Opinions ›› United States v. 92 Buena Vista Avenue (1993)
UNITED STATES, PETITIONER v. A PARCEL OF LAND, BUILDINGS, APPURTENANCES AND IMPROVEMENTS, KNOWN AS 92 BUENA VISTA AVENUE, RUMSON, NEW JERSEY, ET AL.
No. 91-781 SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES 507 U.S. 111; 113 S. Ct. 1126; 122 L. Ed. 2d 469; 1993 U.S. LEXIS 1782; 61 U.S.L.W. 4189; 93 Cal. Daily Op. Service 1249; 7 Fla. L. Weekly Fed. S 24 October 13, 1992, Argued February 24, 1993, Decided PRIOR HISTORY: ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT. The Government filed an in rem action against the parcel of land on which respondent's home is located, alleging that she had purchased the property with funds given her by Joseph Brenna that were "the proceeds traceable" to illegal drug trafficking, and that the property was therefore subject to seizure and forfeiture under the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970, 21 U.S.C. § 881(a)(6). The District Court ruled, among other things, that respondent, who claims that she had no knowledge of the origins of the funds used to buy her house, could not invoke the "innocent owner" defense in § 881(a)(6), which provides that "no property shall be forfeited ..., to the extent of the interest of an owner, by reason of any act ... established by that owner to have been committed ... without the knowledge or consent of that owner." The Court of Appeals remanded on interlocutory appeal, rejecting the District Court's reasoning that the innocent owner defense may be invoked only by persons who are bona fide purchasers for value and by those who acquired their property interests before the acts giving rise to the forfeiture took place.
The judgment is affirmed.
JUSTICE KENNEDY's dramatic suggestion that our construction of the 1984 amendment [providing for the innocent owner defense] "rips out," the "centerpiece of the Nation's drug enforcement laws," rests on what he characterizes as the "safe" assumption that the innocent owner defense would be available to "an associate" of a criminal who could "shelter the proceeds from forfeiture, to be reacquired once he is clear from law enforcement authorities." As a matter of fact, forfeitable proceeds are much more likely to be possessed by drug dealers themselves than by transferees sufficiently remote to qualify as innocent owners; as a matter of law, it is quite clear that neither an "associate" in the criminal enterprise nor a temporary custodian of drug proceeds would qualify as an innocent owner; indeed, neither would a sham bona fide purchaser.
[...]
It is my obligation to say, however, that the plurality's opinion leaves the forfeiture scheme that is the centerpiece of the Nation's drug enforcement laws in quite a mess.
The practical difficulties created by the plurality's interpretation of § 881 [the innocent owner exception] are immense, and we should not assume Congress intended such results when it enacted § 881(a)(6). To start, the plurality's interpretation of § 881(a)(6) conflicts with the principal purpose we have identified for forfeiture under the Continuing Criminal Enterprise Act, which is "the desire to lessen the economic power of ... drug enterprises." Caplin & Drysdale, Chartered v. United States, 491 U.S. 617, 630, 105 L. Ed. 2d 528, 109 S. Ct. 2646, 109 S. Ct. 2667 (1989). [...]
Another oddity now given to us by the plurality's interpretation is that a gratuitous transferee must forfeit the proceeds of a drug deal if she knew of the drug deal before she received the proceeds but not if she discovered it a moment after.
[...]
The statutory puzzle the plurality and concurrence find so engaging is created because of a false premise, the premise that the possessor of an asset subject to forfeiture does not stand in the position of the transferor but must be charged with some guilty knowledge of her own. Forfeiture proceedings, though, are directed at an asset, and a donee in general has no more than the ownership rights of the donor. By denying this simple principle, the plurality rips out the most effective enforcement provisions in all of the drug forfeiture laws.
[...]
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