Civil Forfeiture

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7th Circuit Court of Appeals

Case Name: United States of America v. Funds in the Amount of $271,080

Case No.: 15-2857

Officials: WOOD, Chief Judge, and BAUER and POSNER, Circuit Judges.

Focus: Civil Forfeiture

Government fails to establish the funds found pursuant to search warrant was connected to drug trafficking.

“Second, the government maintained that even if the brothers have standing to challenge the forfeiture, a jury could not reasonably conclude that the evidence does not establish by a preponderance that the money is substantially connected to drug trafficking. That convoluted phrasing is necessary because in a civil-forfeiture action it is the government, as plaintiff, that bears the burden of proving the money’s connection to drug trafficking; claimants must establish standing but are not required to prove “legitimate” ownership. See $239,400, 795 F.3d at 646. The government pointed to the circumstances in which the currency was found—in a safe to which a drug dog had alerted, bundled in stacks, along with the handwritten notes the government’s lawyer called a “drug ledger,” and near a house containing apparent drug paraphernalia. It also relied on tax records and the brothers’ disclosures about their income, which the government argued was too low to permit the accumulation of such a large sum.””

Vacated and Remanded

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Attorney Derek A. Hawkins is the managing partner at Hawkins Law Offices LLC, where he heads up the firm’s startup law practice. He specializes in business formation, corporate governance, intellectual property protection, private equity and venture capital funding and mergers & acquisitions. Check out the website at www.hawkins-lawoffices.com or contact them at 262-737-8825.