Local Lawyer To Argue Before High Court Legality Of Confiscating Property From Prosecuted Defendants At Issue

A Spokane attorney will argue before the U.S. Supreme Court that it’s illegal for authorities to confiscate property from defendants who are criminally prosecuted.

“It’s probably the most important criminal case to come before the Supreme Court in years,” said Spokane attorney Jeffry Finer.

He and Seattle attorney Jeff Steinborn represent two California men, James Wren and Charles Arlt.

The U.S. Supreme Court decided Friday to hear Wren and Arlt’s case, and a companion case from Michigan. Arguments are expected to be heard this spring, and a ruling likely will come in the fall.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Wren and Arlt could not be forced to give up $405,089 from drug sales because they were convicted in 1992 of criminal charges related to the scheme.

Finer argued successfully that civil forfeiture and criminal prosecution violate double-jeopardy protections offered by the U.S. Constitution.

Finer was one of the first attorneys in the country to raise that legal issue in successful appeals of other drug defendants a few years ago. Government prosecutors did not appeal those cases from the Eastern District of Washington, or they were rejected by the Supreme Court.

But with hundreds of similar double-jeopardy appeals piling up in various appeals courts, the Justice Department sought to take the case to the Supreme Court.

The court said Friday it will decide whether federal authorities can prosecute people for drug crimes while also suing them in an effort to force them to forfeit property.

The justices also agreed to decide, in a separate case from Nevada, whether people who flee to avoid criminal charges can be denied the right to defend themselves against a related civil-forfeiture action.

Federal prosecutors have sought numerous asset forfeitures in recent years as a major part of the war on drugs. Prosecutors prefer civil forfeiture because seeking confiscation of property as part of a criminal case can slow and complicate a prosecution.

In the Michigan case, a federal appeals court threw out Guy Jerome Ursery’s 1993 conviction on a charge of manufacturing marijuana. Earlier, Ursery had agreed to pay the government $13,250 instead of forfeiting the home in Perry, Mich., where the marijuana was grown and harvested.

In overturning Ursery’s criminal conviction and 63-month prison sentence, the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the conviction was “a second punishment” for the same offense.

In its appeal to the Supreme Court, the Clinton administration argued that forfeiture of drug-related property is not punishment. Government lawyers contended the offenses leading to the forfeitures were not the same as the underlying criminal offenses.

The appeal in the California case was supported by 42 states and Puerto Rico in a friend-of-the-court brief that said most states have similar civil forfeiture laws.

, DataTimes