No. 15-1360

United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit
__________
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
PLAINTIFF-APPELLEE
v.
FINN BATATO; BRAM VAN DER KOLK; JULIUS BENCKO; MATHIAS ORTMANN; SVEN
ECHTERNACH; KIM DOTCOM; MEGAUPLOAD LIMITED; MEGAPAY LIMITED; VESTOR
LIMITED; MEGAMEDIA LIMITED; MEGASTUFF LIMITED; MONA DOTCOM,
CLAIMANTS-APPELLANTS
AND

ALL ASSETS LISTED IN ATTACHMENT A, AND ALL INTEREST, BENEFITS, AND ASSETS
TRACEABLE THERETO, IN REM DEFENDANT
__________
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF VIRGINIA,
NO. 14- CV-00969 HON. LIAM O’GRADY, PRESIDING

__________
BRIEF AMICI CURIAE FOR THE CATO INSTITUTE, INSTITUTE FOR
JUSTICE, AND NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF CRIMINAL DEFENSE
LAWYERS IN SUPPORT OF CLAIMANTS-APPELLANTS
__________

Darpana Sheth
Institute for Justice
901 N. Glebe Rd., Suite 900
Arlington, VA 22203
(703) 682-9425
Thomas K. Maher
N.C. Office of Indigent Def. Services
123 W. Main St., Suite 400
Durham, N.C. 27705
(919) 354-7200

Ilya Shapiro
Counsel of Record
Cato Institute
1000 Massachusetts Ave. NW
Washington, DC 20001
(202) 842-0200
ishapiro@cato.org

 CORPORATE & FINANCIAL DISCLOSURE STATEMENTS
Pursuant to Fourth Circuit Local Rule 26.1, amici make the following
declarations:
The Cato Institute is a nonprofit public policy research foundations
dedicated in part to the defense of constitutional liberties secured by law. Cato has
no parent corporation and does not issue shares of stock.
The Institute for Justice is a nonprofit civil liberties law firm. IJ is not a
publicly held corporation and does not have any parent corporation. No publicly
held corporation owns 10 percent or more of its stock.
The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers is a non-profit
corporation that offers no stock; there are no parent corporations or publicly owned
corporations that own 10 percent or more of NACDL’s stock.
No publicly held corporation has a direct financial interest in the outcome of
this litigation due to the participation of amici.

i

 TABLE OF CONTENTS
CORPORATE & FINANCIAL DISCLOSURE STATEMENTS .............................i
TABLE OF CONTENTS .......................................................................................... ii
TABLE OF AUTHORITIES ................................................................................... iii
INTEREST OF AMICI CURIAE ............................................................................... 1
SUMMARY OF THE ARGUMENT ........................................................................ 3
ARGUMENT ............................................................................................................. 5
I.

Section 2466 Unconstitutionally And Dangerously Strips Due Process
Rights From Claimants Whom The Government Has Haled Into Court ..... 5
A. The Right to Be Heard Is a “Root Requirement” of Due Process that
Cannot Be Denied by Statute ................................................................... 5
B. Due Process Requires the Right to Defend against GovernmentInitiated Forfeiture Proceedings ............................................................... 7
C. Courts Must Pay Special Attention to Situations Where, as Here, the
Government Is the Beneficiary of the Denial of Due-Process Rights ... 12

II. There Are No Valid Countervailing Considerations That Justify
Stripping Claimants Of Due Process Rights In A Forfeiture Proceeding .. 16
A. The Interest in the Enforceability of the Court’s Judgment................... 17
B. The Interest in Disentitling a Fugitive to Relief..................................... 18
C. The Interest in Not Disrupting the Court’s Judicial Processes and
Impugning the Court’s Dignity .............................................................. 20
D. The Interest in Deterring Escape From Justice ...................................... 22
CONCLUSION ........................................................................................................ 23
CERTIFICATE OF COMPLIANCE ....................................................................... 24
CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE ................................................................................ 25

ii

 TABLE OF AUTHORITIES
Cases
Abney v. United States, 431 U.S. 651 (1977) ..........................................................16
Ali v. Sims, 788 F.2d 954 (3d Cir. 1986) .................................................................19
Allen v. Georgia, 166 U.S. 138 (1897) ....................................................................17
Boddie v. Connecticut, 401 U.S. 371 (1971) .............................................................6
Bonaham v. Nebraska, 125 U.S. 692 (1887) ...........................................................17
Calder v. Bull, 3 U.S. 386 (1798) ..............................................................................9
Daccarett-Ghia v. Commissioner, 70 F.3d 621 (D.C. Cir. 1995) ...........................20
Degen v. United States, 517 U.S. 820 (1996). .........................................................23
Diaz v. United States, 223 U.S. 442 (1912) .............................................................11
Eisler v. United States, 338 U.S. 189 (1949) ...........................................................17
Fuentes v. Shevin, 407 U.S. 67 (1972)............................................................ 6, 7, 12
Goss v. Lopez, 419 U.S. 565 (1975) ..........................................................................6
Grannis v. Ordean, 234 U.S. 385 (1914)...................................................................6
Hovey v. Elliott, 167 U.S. 409 (1897) ....................................................... 8, 9, 10, 11
Int’l Union v. Bagel, 512 U.S. 821 (1994) ...............................................................22
Kim Dotcom et al. v. Deputy Solicitor General et al.,
CIV-2015-404-856, [2015] NZHC 1197, 3 June 2015........................................18
Logan v. Zimmerman Brush Co., 455 U.S. 422 (1982) ...........................................11
Marshall v. Jerrico, Inc, 446 U.S. 238 (1980).........................................................13
iii

 McKane v. Durston, 153 U.S. 684 (1894) ...............................................................16
McVeigh v. United States, 78 U.S. 259 (1871) ................................................. 3, 8, 9
Memphis Light, Gas & Water Div. v. Craft, 436 U.S. 1 (1978) ................................6
Molinaro v. New Jersey, 396 U.S. 365 (1970) ........................................................17
Mullane v. Central Hanover Trust Co., 339 U.S. 306 (1950) ...................................6
Nat’l Union of Marine Cooks v. Arnold & Stewards, 348 U.S. 37 (1954)....... 10, 11
Ortega-Rodriguez v. United States, 507 U.S. 234 (1993) ................................ 16, 17
Smith v. United States, 94 U.S. 97 (1876) ........................................................ 16, 17
Sniadach v. Family Fin. Corp., 395 U.S. 337 (1969) ................................................6
Stanley v. Illinois, 405 U.S. 645 (1972) ...................................................................21
Tumey v. Ohio, 273 U.S. 510 (1927) .......................................................................13
United States v. $40,877.59 in U.S. Currency,
32 F.3d 1151 (7th Cir. 1994) .......................................................... 7, 8, 17, 19, 22
United States v. James Daniel Good Real Prop., 510 U.S. 43 (1993) ....................12
United States v. Pole No. 3172, 852 F.2d 636 (1st Cir. 1988) ......................... 18, 19
Ward v. Vill. of Monroeville, 409 U.S. 57 (1972) ...................................................13
Statutes
28 U.S.C. § 2466 .............................................................................................. passim
Other Authorities
Diane Jennings, Lawmakers Eye Reforms for Texas Asset Forfeitures, Dallas
Morning News, Feb. 28, 2011, http://bit.ly/1Nc0kSS .........................................14

iv

 John Burnett, Sheriff under Scrutiny over Drug Money Spending, NPR, June 18,
2008, http://n.pr/1KdqiYo ....................................................................................15
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Civil Forfeiture (Oct. 5, 2014),
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kEpZWGgJks ..........................................15
Magna Carta, (June 15, 1215) .................................................................................21
Marian R. Williams, Jefferson E. Holcomb, et. al, Policing for Profit, The Institute
for Justice (Mar. 2010) .........................................................................................15
Martha B. Stolley, Sword or Shield: Due Process & the Fugitive Disentitlement
Doctrine, 87 J. Crim. L. & Criminology 751 (1997).................................... 19, 22
Montgomery DA Says Funds Used for Liquor at Cook-Off, Houston Chronicle,
Mar. 18, 2008, http://bit.ly/1zjObc3 ....................................................................15
“Pennies From Heaven” Chief Burton Talks Asset Forfeitures (Raw Footage)
(Nov. 19, 2012), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipHUN-xLLms ...............14
Rodney L. Mott, Due Process of Law (1926) ............................................................3

v

 INTEREST OF AMICI CURIAE1
The Cato Institute was established in 1977 as a nonpartisan public policy
research foundation dedicated to advancing the principles of individual liberty, free
markets, and limited government. Cato’s Center for Constitutional Studies was
established in 1989 to promote the principles of limited constitutional government
that are the foundation of liberty. Toward those ends, Cato publishes books and
studies, conducts conferences, issues the annual Cato Supreme Court Review, and
files amicus briefs with the courts.
The Institute for Justice (“IJ”) is a nonprofit, public-interest law firm
committed to protecting the right to property, both because individuals’ control
over their property is a tenet of personal liberty and because property rights are
inextricably linked to all other rights. The government’s ability to interfere with
private property without adequate safeguards gravely threatens individual liberty.
For this reason, IJ both litigates original cases to defend property rights and files
amicus briefs in relevant cases, including Henderson v. United States, – S. Ct. –
(2015); Kaley v. United States, 134 S. Ct. 1090 (2014), Florida v. Harris, 133 S.
Ct. 1050 (2013); Alvarez v. Smith, 558 U.S. 87 (2009); Bennis v. Michigan, 516

Pursuant to Fed. R. App. P. 29, both parties, through their respective counsel,
have consented to the filing of this brief. Counsel for the parties did not author this
brief in whole or in part. No person or entity other than amici and their members
made a monetary contribution to the preparation or submission of this brief.
1

1

 U.S. 442 (1996); and United States v. James Daniel Good Real Property, 510 U.S.
43 (1993).
The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (“NACDL”) is a
nonprofit voluntary professional bar association that works on behalf of criminal
defense attorneys to ensure justice and due process for those accused of crime or
misconduct, including those subject to attempts by the government to forfeit
property. NACDL files numerous amicus briefs each year in the U.S. Supreme
Court and other courts, seeking to provide amicus assistance in cases that present
issues of broad importance to criminal defendants, criminal defense lawyers, the
criminal justice system and the justice system as a whole.
The present case concerns amici because the federal government’s
aggressive use of forfeiture poses a grave threat to property rights and can cause
irreparable injury when property is forfeited without any hearing. The strong
pecuniary interest that law enforcement has in maximizing forfeiture proceeds has
both distorted police and prosecutorial practices and, in many cases, led to the
restraint or seizure of untainted assets.

2

 SUMMARY OF THE ARGUMENT
In this, the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta, it’s worthwhile to remember
the document’s most important contribution to Anglo-American law: due process
according to “the law of the land.” Rodney L. Mott, Due Process of Law (1926).
Occasionally the government needs to be reminded of that fact. Amici will oblige.
The U.S. government is the most powerful organization in the history of
humankind. Anyone who becomes the target of the government’s power—whether
from a criminal accusation, a regulatory infraction, or, as here, a civil-forfeiture
proceeding—is immediately at an extreme disadvantage. Due process protections
ensure that the government is wielding its astonishing power legitimately rather
than just exercising pure, irresistible force.
The statute at issue, 28 U.S.C. § 2466, seeks to statutorily deprive the
claimants of due-process rights that are, to say the least, much more firmly rooted
in our law than the Civil Asset Forfeiture Reform Act of 2000. Extending the
equitable doctrine of fugitive disentitlement to civil-forfeiture proceedings is
contrary to the Supreme Court’s jurisprudence in this area. That Court has held that
the due-process right to be heard can’t even be stripped from someone who was in
rebellion against the United States. McVeigh v. United States, 78 U.S. 259 (1871).
Surely that reasoning extends to those who are lawfully resisting extradition and
fully appearing before the district court in the separate forfeiture action.

3

 Stripping the claimants of their due process rights isn’t just unconstitutional,
it’s dangerous. There’s a growing literature on the abuse of civil forfeiture—and
those abuses are directly tied to the protections given to the claimants here, as well
as the ability of government officials to directly benefit from forfeitures. This court
should not ratify a doctrine that would make abuses even easier.
Moreover, the reasons for invoking the fugitive disentitlement doctrine in
criminal appeals are inapplicable to civil forfeiture actions. First, unlike an order
against an absent criminal defendant, a valid forfeiture order where the court has
rightful jurisdiction will be fully enforceable. Second, the claimants here haven’t
scorned the district court’s authority as a fleeing criminal defendant would. Third,
by appearing before the court via counsel, the claimants haven’t disrupted the
court’s processes or offended its dignity. Finally, unlike with criminal appellants—
who may need to be deterred from flight by the threat of disentitlement—the
claimants are merely continuing to lawfully reside in their home countries.
George Washington apocryphally said “Government is not reason, it is not
eloquence—it is force.” Despite the mistaken provenance, the sentiment remains
true. The protections of due process are not just crucial because they are
fundamentally fair; they provide legitimacy to the exercise governmental force,
when such force proves necessary.

4

 In this case, the U.S. government has tried to reach its overwhelming force
across the sea into other sovereign states in order to seize assets that it alleges are
connected to a crime. Not content to hold the best hand in this card game—a U.S.
Attorney’s office with extensive resources and privileges—the government has
decided that the other side should be forced to relinquish its chips before the game
even begins. This Court should not countenance such a gross violation of due
process. It should hold Section 2466 unconstitutional on its face or, at a minimum,
invalidate the district court’s application of the provision.
ARGUMENT
I.

Section 2466 Unconstitutionally And Dangerously Strips Due Process
Rights From Claimants Whom The Government Has Haled Into Court
At minimum, due process requires a right to be heard, yet Section 2466

removes even that small kernel of due process protection. Furthermore, in a
government-initiated action, due process accords the right to defend against the
government’s claims. Finally, these deprivations of due process will roll back
protections at a time when we are becoming aware of the well-documented
tendency of government agents to abuse civil asset forfeiture.
A. The Right to Be Heard Is a “Root Requirement” of Due Process that
Cannot Be Denied by Statute
Section 2466 deprives the claimants of the right to be heard before forfeiting
their assets. Yet the Supreme Court has held that the “root requirement” of the Due

5

 Process Clause is that “an individual be given an opportunity for a hearing before
he is deprived of any significant property interest.” Boddie v. Connecticut, 401
U.S. 371, 379 (1971) (emphasis original). See also, Memphis Light, Gas & Water
Div. v. Craft, 436 U.S. 1, 18 (1978) (hearing required before shutting off utilities);
Goss v. Lopez, 419 U.S. 565, 579 (1975) (“at the very minimum” due process
“requires some kind of hearing”) (emphasis original); Grannis v. Ordean, 234 U.S.
385, 394 (1914) (“The fundamental requisite of due process of law is the
opportunity to be heard”); Mullane v. Central Hanover Trust Co., 339 U.S. 306,
313 (1950) (“controversies have raged about the cryptic and abstract words of the
Due Process Clause but there can be no doubt that at a minimum they require that
deprivation of life, liberty or property by adjudication be preceded by notice and
opportunity for hearing appropriate to the nature of the case.”).
For more trivial deprivations than the several million dollars at issue here,
the Supreme Court has held that a hearing is required. In Fuentes v. Shevin, 407
U.S. 67, 85 (1972), the Court held that “the temporary, nonfinal deprivation of
property” of a stove violated the Due Process Clause. See also, Sniadach v. Family
Fin. Corp., 395 U.S. 337, 338 (1969) (holding that the due process clause is
violated “when a notice and an opportunity to be heard are not given before the in
rem seizure of the wages”). In Fuentes, the Court struck down state statutes that
allowed private parties to seize goods where owners were deficient in paying

6

 installments. Fuentes, 407 U.S. at 69. Much like the government’s ex parte
assertions that underlie the seizure in the instant case, those goods, usually
appliances and furniture, could be seized “simply upon the ex parte application of
any other person who claims a right to them and posts a security bond[.]” Id. The
Court held that “the statutes work a deprivation of property without due process of
law insofar as they deny the right to a prior opportunity to be heard before chattels
are taken from their possessors.” Id. at 96.
If denying the right to be heard in a temporary, non-final deprivation of an
appliance violated due process, then the permanent deprivation of several million
dollars without a hearing is similarly suspect.
B. Due Process Requires the Right to Defend against Government-Initiated
Forfeiture Proceedings
The claimants here aren’t seeking this Court’s indulgence by affirmatively
bringing actions against the government or other persons. They aren’t seeking to
sap this Court’s resources by haling people into its jurisdiction while residing
elsewhere. Although this is an in rem proceeding, the claimants are “[l]ike the
owner of property in any forfeiture proceeding, though labeled a claimant and
allocated the burden of proof, [they are] clearly in a defensive position.” United
States v. $40,877.59 in U.S. Currency, 32 F.3d 1151, 1154 (7th Cir. 1994). “The
government has initiated the proceedings to deprive claimant of his property; he is

7

 not in court as the initiator of the action, but rather is defending that action against
his property.” Id.
In a property forfeiture proceeding initiated by the government, the
irreducible minimum of due process is a right to be heard and to present every
available defense. The right to be heard in an action brought against you is
fundamental, see Section I.A, supra, and it is irrelevant whether the claimants are
foreign citizens, or even whether they’re in open rebellion against the United
States. McVeigh v. United States, 78 U.S. 259 (1871). Being a part of “natural
justice,” and the Constitution itself, Hovey v. Elliott, 167 U.S. 409, 414 (1897), the
right to be defend cannot be denied by a mere statute.
In McVeigh, the Court held that the right to defend against a forfeiture action
could not even be abridged for someone who was allegedly collaborating with the
Confederacy. 78 U.S. at 266. Pursuant to a July 1862 Act of Congress authorizing
rebel property to be seized, the property of one McVeigh was set for forfeiture.
McVeigh appeared “by counsel” to protest the seizure, and the U.S. Attorney
argued that the claim should be stricken because the respondent was “a resident of
the city of Richmond, within the Confederate lines, and a rebel.” Id. at 266.
The district court agreed, but the Supreme Court unanimously overruled that
court’s “serious error.” Id. at 267. “The order in effect denied the respondent a

8

 hearing,” wrote the Court, and the right to defend is a necessary corollary to the
action brought against McVeigh:
If assailed there, he could defend there. The liability and the right are
inseparable. A different result would be a blot upon our jurisprudence and
civilization. We cannot hesitate or doubt on the subject. It would be contrary
to the first principles of the social compact and of the right administration of
justice.
Id.
In support of the “first principle of the social compact and of the right
administration of justice,” the Court cited Calder v. Bull, in which Justice Chase
famously invoked the higher principles behind the Constitution: “An act of the
Legislature (for I cannot call it a law) contrary to the great first principles of the
social compact, cannot be considered a rightful exercise of legislative authority.”
Calder v. Bull, 3 U.S. 386, 388 (1798). The same can be said of Section 2466.
In Hovey, the Court further emphasized that the right to defend against an
action is fundamental to due process:
To say that courts have inherent power to deny all right to defend an action
and to render decrees without any hearing whatever is, in the very nature of
things, to convert the court exercising such an authority into an instrument of
wrong and oppression, and hence to strip it of that attribute of justice upon
which the exercise of judicial power necessarily depends.
167 U.S. at 414. The Court there called the right to defend “a principle of natural
justice, recognized as such by the common intelligence and conscience of all
nations.” Id. (quoting Windsor v. McVeigh, 93 U.S 274, 277-78 (1876)). If a

9

 sentence is given against someone without “hearing him, or giving him an
opportunity to be heard, [it] is not a judicial determination of his rights, and is not
entitled to respect in any other tribunal.” Id.
Yet the Court did not just confine the judiciary’s inherent powers with this
language. Later in the Hovey opinion, it emphasized that even a legislative act—
such as Section 2466—that denied the fundamental right to defend cannot
withstand constitutional scrutiny:
Can it be doubted that due process of law signifies a right to be heard in
one’s defence? If the legislative department of the government were to enact
a statute conferring the right to condemn the citizen without any opportunity
whatever of being heard, would it be pretended that such an enactment
would not be violative of the Constitution?
Id. at 417.
Due process requires that a person “must be permitted to defend himself in
any court where his antagonist can appear and prosecute.” Nat’l Union of Marine
Cooks v. Arnold & Stewards, 348 U.S. 37, 47 (1954) (Black, J., dissenting). In his
dissent in National Union, in which a state supreme court dismissed an appeal
because the petitioner “disobeyed a court order to turn over certain bonds which
were not even the subject matter of th[e] lawsuit,” id. at 45, Justice Hugo Black
echoed the concerns about illegitimate legislative action in Hovey: “I do not think
the Washington legislature could provide this kind of punishment for disobedience

10

 of a court order or for any other crime.” Id. “Th[e] right of defense belongs to all—
good or bad, one who has violated laws the same as one who has not.” Id. at 47.
To put a finer point on this discussion, it is axiomatic that a criminal
defendant can’t be summarily convicted because he refused to show up for trial—
and certainly a statute allowing such a conviction would be unconstitutional. A
defendant may be tried in absentia and thus give up the right to personally confront
witnesses, but he is nevertheless entitled to a trial in which his lawyer can fully
participate. Diaz v. United States, 223 U.S. 442, 455 (1912). Well, in Hovey, the
Court found “no distinction” between the due-process right to be heard in civil
versus criminal cases: “If the power to violate the fundamental constitutional
safeguards securing property exists, and if they may be with impunity set aside by
courts on the theory that they do not apply to proceedings in contempt, why will
they not also apply to proceedings against the liberty of the subject?” Hovey, 167
U.S. at 419.
In sum, the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment requires that
adequate notice and a meaningful hearing on the merits must precede a deprivation
of life, liberty, or property. Logan v. Zimmerman Brush Co., 455 U.S. 422, 428-29
(1982). That hearing can’t merely be hollow procedural exercise. Id. If a claimant
is disentitled in a civil forfeiture suit, the government effectively strips away the

11

 rights to be heard and to defend and transfers the property to the government based
on the government’s mere allegations of its connection to a crime.
C. Courts Must Pay Special Attention to Situations Where, as Here, the
Government Is the Beneficiary of the Denial of Due-Process Rights
Section 2466 doesn’t just unconstitutionally strip claimants of due process
rights, it creates a dangerous situation whereby the government can benefit by
riding roughshod over the rights of property owners.
Because the government serves as both the accuser and the beneficiary of
property forfeiture, courts must take special care to ensure that the government
doesn’t illegitimately gain from squashing the claimants’ due process rights. As the
Court said in James Daniel Good: “The purpose of an adversary hearing is to
ensure the requisite neutrality that must inform all governmental decisionmaking,”
and “[t]hat protection is of particular importance here, where the government has a
direct pecuniary interest in the outcome.” United States v. James Daniel Good Real
Prop., 510 U.S. 43, 55-56 (1993). It’s concerning enough when the government
takes away due process rights in a criminal proceeding, or eliminates the right to be
heard in a civil claim between two private parties. See Fuentes, 407 U.S. at 83
(finding that, in a civil action between private parties, when “private gain is at
stake, the danger is all too great that [one party’s] confidence in his cause will be
misplaced.”) But in neither of those situations is the government the direct

12

 beneficiary of the deprivation of due process—and in the case of a criminal
proceeding, punishing defendants actually costs the government money.
The Supreme Court has recognized that when there are potential conflicts of
interest, or the possibility of unjust gains, then special attention must be paid to due
process protections. In Tumey, the Court held that it deprives a defendant of due
process “to subject his liberty or property to the judgment of a court the judge of
which has a direct, personal, substantial, pecuniary interest in reaching a
conclusion against him in his case.” Tumey v. Ohio, 273 U.S. 510, 523 (1927). In
Ward v. Vill. of Monroeville, the Court ruled that allowing mayors to sit in
judgment of ordinance violations denied due process because a “‘possible
temptation’ may exist when the mayor’s executive responsibilities for village
finances may make him partisan to maintain the high level of contribution from the
mayor’s court.” 409 U.S. 57, 60 (1972). And in Marshall v. Jerrico, Inc., the Court
cautioned about the “possibility that [an official’s] judgment will be distorted by
the prospect of institutional gain as a result of zealous enforcement efforts.” 446
U.S. 238, 250 (1980).
With the stunningly broad jurisdictional claims made in this case, the
government’s elimination of due process rights via the fugitive disentitlement
doctrine is particularly alarming. Under the arguments proffered by the
government, anyone who has ever been online and happened to have payments

13

 routed through American servers could be subject to U.S. jurisdiction. Couple this
de facto universal jurisdiction with the ability to invoke fugitive disentitlement in
civil forfeiture proceedings, and this Court could ratify a dangerous mix of
perverse incentives and unchecked government profiteering.
These concerns are hardly speculative. Over the course of the past two
decades, it has become clear that civil forfeiture abuse is directly tied to whether
law enforcement agencies and officials can profit from the seizures. This court
should not make it easier for further misuse to occur.
The Texas Senate Committee on Criminal Justice has said that civil
forfeiture has “become a profit-making, personal account for some law
enforcement officials.” Diane Jennings, Lawmakers Eye Reforms for Texas Asset
Forfeitures, Dallas Morning News, Feb. 28, 2011, http://bit.ly/1Nc0kSS. As Police
Chief Ken Burton of the Columbia Police Department described when asked about
forfeiture funds, “there is some limitations on it, um, actually not really on the
forfeiture stuff, we just base it on stuff that would be nice to have, that we can’t get
in the budget for instance. . . . Its kind of like pennies from heaven, it gets you a
toy or something you need, is the way we typically look at it, to be perfectly
honest.” “Pennies From Heaven” Chief Burton Talks Asset Forfeitures (Raw
Footage) (Nov. 19, 2012), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipHUN-xLLms.

14

 Civil forfeiture funds have been used to buy tequila, rum, kegs, and a
margarita machine. Montgomery DA Says Funds Used for Liquor at Cook-Off,
Houston Chronicle, Mar. 18, 2008, http://bit.ly/1zjObc3. If the police want a new
toy—such as a $90,000 Dodge Viper—that too can be acquired via civil forfeiture.
John Burnett, Sheriff under Scrutiny over Drug Money Spending, NPR, June 18,
2008, http://n.pr/1KdqiYo. See also Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Civil
Forfeiture (Oct. 5, 2014), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kEpZWGgJks.
Now, amici are not accusing the government of trying to directly profit from
the forfeiture in this case, but future malfeasance from government officials
unconstrained by due process rights is certainly possible given the current state of
affairs, if not likely.
In a 2010 report, amicus Institute for Justice studied patterns of civil
forfeiture abuse. Marian R. Williams, Jefferson E. Holcomb, et. al, Policing for
Profit, The Institute for Justice (Mar. 2010). The report found that putting higher
burdens on owners to prove the property’s innocence contribute to higher rates of
forfeiture. Id. at 20-23, 35-40. Concerns about profiteering are “exacerbated by
legal procedures that make civil forfeiture relatively easy for the government and
hard for property owners to fight.” Id. at 6. Such concerns of prosecutorial
overreach and profiteering are, of course, among the many reasons for protecting
fundamental due process rights.

15

 II.

There Are No Valid Countervailing Considerations That Justify
Stripping Claimants Of Due Process Rights In A Forfeiture Proceeding
The Supreme Court has only ratified the use of fugitive disentitlement in

criminal appeals for certain limited purposes. Because those purposes can’t be
extended to fugitive disentitlement in civil forfeiture proceedings, Section 2466
serves no purpose except to strip claimants of due process rights.
There is no constitutional right to appeal a criminal conviction. Abney v.
United States, 431 U.S. 651, 656 (1977); McKane v. Durston, 153 U.S. 684 (1894).
And it makes sense to limit appeals in criminal matters for defendants who (a)
don’t have a right to appeal; and (b) have escaped from custody. Yet, in civil
forfeiture matters, not only does the claimant have a right to be heard and to
defend, see Section I, supra, but the claimants and their property here are in no
way “on the run.”
Fugitive disentitlement is an equitable doctrine of appellate procedure to be
applied to fugitive criminals. “[A]n appelate court may dismiss the appeal of a
[criminal] defendant who is a fugitive from justice during the pendency of his
appeal.” Ortega-Rodriguez v. United States, 507 U.S. 234, 239 (1993). The
doctrine was originally motivated by a concern that a court could not enforce its
judgment against a fugitive defendant. Smith v. United States, 94 U.S. 97, 97
(1876) (“It is clearly within our discretion to refuse to hear a criminal case in error,
unless the convicted party, suing out the writ, is where he can be made to respond
16

 to any judgment we may render.”); accord Bonaham v. Nebraska, 125 U.S. 692
(1887); Allen v. Georgia, 166 U.S. 138 (1897); Eisler v. United States, 338 U.S.
189 (1949).
In Molinaro v. New Jersey, 396 U.S. 365 (1970) (per curiam), the Court
added another rationale for the fugitive disentitlement doctrine: a fugitive’s escape
“disentitles [him] to call upon the resources of the Court for determination of his
claims.” Id. at 366. And in Ortega-Rodriguez, the Court said that fugitive
disentitlement “serves an important deterrent function and advances an interest in
efficient, dignified appellate practice.” 507 U.S. at 242 (citing Estelle v. Dorrough,
420 U.S. 534, 537 (1975)).
These rationales cannot be analogized to allow fugitive disentitlement in
civil forfeiture proceedings.
A. The Interest in the Enforceability of the Court’s Judgment
If a criminal defendant is not under the control of the justice system then any
sentence handed down by a court cannot be enforced. As an equitable doctrine, it
makes sense that a court would not allow a defendant to benefit from a successful
appeal but evade an adverse ruling. Smith v. United States, supra. An absent
claimant in a forfeiture proceeding, however, “does not threaten the integrity of the
forfeiture proceeding.” United States v. $40,877.59 in U.S. Currency, 32 F.3d
1151, 1156 (7th Cir. 1994).

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 Assuming that the court has jurisdiction over the property at issue here, a
valid forfeiture order would be fully enforceable. Of course, as the claimants
explain, the district court may not have jurisdiction over their property, and if that
is true, the case should be dismissed. Some common-law countries (such as New
Zealand) will not register a forfeiture order obtained via fugitive disentitlement on
the grounds that it violates “natural justice.” See Kim Dotcom et al. v. Deputy
Solicitor General et al., CIV-2015-404-856, [2015] NZHC 1197, 3 June 2015,
Ellis J (“The application of the fugitive disentitlement doctrine to a person who is
exercising a bilaterally recognised right to defend an eligibility hearing, with the
result that he is deprived of the financial means to mount that defence, is to put that
person on the horns of a most uncomfortable and [the plaintiffs would say]
unconstitutional dilemma.”). Nevertheless, in the event that a valid forfeiture order
is obtained, the fugitive’s property will suffer the effects of an adverse judgment.
See United States v. Pole No. 3172, 852 F.2d 636, 643 (1st Cir. 1988) (explaining
that the concerns that a judgment will not be enforceable “does not arise” in
forfeiture actions).
Accordingly, the primary rationale for applying fugitive disentitlement—
enforcing judgments—is simply inapplicable in the civil forfeiture context.
B. The Interest in Disentitling a Fugitive from Relief
Some courts have endorsed fugitive disentitlement as a sanction for a

18

 fugitive who “has demonstrated such disrespect for the legal processes that he has
no right to call upon the court to adjudicate his claim.” Ali v. Sims, 788 F.2d 954,
959 (3d Cir. 1986). But, as the Seventh Circuit has said, disentitlement is only
properly applied in instances where the fugitive “initiates the proceedings[,]” and
expanding the doctrine to cases where a claimant is defending his property would
violate due process. $40,877.59 in U.S. Currency, 32 F.3d at 1154. When a civil
forfeiture action is initiated by the government, as here, the claimant is not
“call[ing] upon the court,” he’s merely defending himself and his property. No
judicial authority has been scorned, and no relief summoned, by the claimant.
Criminal appellants, on the other hand, are seeking judicial relief. A fugitive
criminal appellant seeks to use the courts for his benefit “while simultaneously
evading any authority the court may wield.” Martha B. Stolley, Sword or Shield:
Due Process & the Fugitive Disentitlement Doctrine, 87 J. Crim. L. &
Criminology 751, 777 (1997). Yet claimants in civil forfeiture cases “cannot be
deemed to be in the customary role of a party invoking the aid of a court to
vindicate rights asserted against another.” Pole No. 3172, 852 F.2d at 643 (quoting
Societe Internationale v. Rogers, 357 U.S. 197, 210 (1958)). And, to reiterate,
federal civil forfeiture claimants are haled into court by the most powerful
organization in human history, one that now seeks to strip all due process
protections from them.

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 C. The Interest in Not Disrupting the Court’s Judicial Processes or
Impugning the Court’s Dignity
The absence of a criminal fugitive appellant can disrupt the orderly flow of
justice. Delays in judicial proceedings are frustrating enough, and courts have
inherent power to address delays caused by a criminal fugitive flaunting the
judicial system.
In a civil forfeiture case, by contrast, a claimant’s failure to appear does not
disrupt the court’s proceedings. As the D.C. Circuit has said:
When an individual appeals his criminal conviction while he remains a
fugitive, there is a connection between his fugitive status and the appellate
proceedings, which is all that Ortega-Rodriguez requires. Thus, if Jose
Ortega-Rodriguez had still been a fugitive at the time he pursued his
criminal appeal, his absence would have flouted the authority of the
Eleventh Circuit to carry out its mandate, making dismissal appropriate. But
when the party’s fugitive status bears no relation to the ongoing proceedings,
the court has no authority to order dismissal.
Daccarett-Ghia v. Commissioner, 70 F.3d 621, 627 (D.C. Cir. 1995).
An absent claimant can obviously appear by counsel in a forfeiture
proceeding; the claimants are doing just that here. Through counsel, the instant
challenge to this fugitive disentitlement is being satisfactorily adjudicated—and the
challenge to the forfeiture itself would have been similarly handled had the
claimants not been stripped of due process. Moreover, there are things more
important than a court’s ability to swiftly move through its docket, among them the
Fifth Amendment right to due process and adhering to ancient principles of

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 fairness. Stanley v. Illinois, 405 U.S. 645, 656 (1972) (The Constitution protects
“higher values than speed and efficiency”; “[t]he Due Process Clause . . . protect[s]
the fragile values of a vulnerable citizenry from the overbearing concern for
efficiency and efficacy that may characterize . . . government officials.”); Magna
Carta, cl. 39, (June 15, 1215) (“No freeman is to be taken or imprisoned or
disseised of his free tenement or of his liberties or free customs, or outlawed or
exiled or in any way ruined, nor will we go against such a man or send against him
save by lawful judgement of his peers or by the law of the land.”)
Nor does the claimants’ absence from the criminal proceeding offend the
district court’s dignity. This is a separate case challenging a civil forfeiture, a
proceeding in which the claimants have tried to participate fully and honestly—at
least as much as the government will let them. Unlike the case of a fugitive
criminal defendant who essentially thumbs his nose at the authority of both the trial
and appellate courts, the dignity of this Court (and the district court) has been
respected at every point in the process.
Finally, preserving this Court’s dignity doesn’t require stripping the
claimants of the most fundamental due process protections. In fact, it undercuts the
Court’s dignity—and, indeed, the dignity of the U.S. government—to proceed
against the claimants in such a heavy-handed and unconstitutional fashion.
“[G]enuine respect, which alone can lend true dignity to our judicial establishment,

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 will be engendered, not be the fear of unlimited authority, but by the firm
administration of the law through those institutionalized procedures which have
been worked out over the centuries.” Int’l Union v. Bagel, 512 U.S. 821, 834
(1994) (quoting Bloom v. Illinois, 391 U.S. 194, 208 (1968)). Dignity is earned by
using the government’s awesome and irresistible power in the spirit of fairness and
justice. “It is a greater stain on our jurisprudence for the court . . . to discard those
procedures that safeguard right and fair decisions.” $40,877.59, 32 F.3d at 1157.
D. The Interest in Deterring Escape From Justice
A final rationale for common-law fugitive disentitlement—deterring
escape—is equally inapplicable here. A threat to dismiss a criminal appeal if the
criminal escapes can be a powerful incentive not to flee. Criminal defendants who
think that they will be vindicated once they have their “day in court” would find
the possibility of fugitive disentitlement particularly concerning. These concerns
aren’t present in the case of fugitive disentitlement in civil forfeiture proceedings.
“Granting a hearing on the validity of seizure to forfeiture claimants who are
fugitives in a criminal proceeding does not encourage potential defendants to flee.”
Stolley, Sword or Shield, at 780-81.
Moreover, when, as here, the alleged “fugitives” never “escaped” from
anywhere—they merely continued to lawfully reside in their countries of
residence—there is no conduct to deter. To reiterate, it is not the absent claimants’

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 affirmative conduct that has brought this action, but rather the government’s move
to use the courts offensively and without consideration of fundamental fairness.
Finally, even if the courts needed to deter flight, there are less draconian
methods. “[T]he need to deter flight from criminal prosecution,” said the Supreme
Court in Degen v. United States, “[is] substantial, but disentitlement is too blunt an
instrument for advancing them.” 517 U.S. 820, 828 (1996).
CONCLUSION
Section 2466 purports to do something that is beyond Congress’s authority:
categorically strip due-process rights from “fugitive” claimants in civil forfeiture
proceedings. This Court should strongly consider whether the provision is facially
unconstitutional. At a minimum, this Court should invalidate the district court’s
application of Section 2466.
Respectfully submitted,
Darpana Sheth
Institute for Justice
901 N. Glebe Rd., Suite 900
Arlington, VA 22203
(703) 682-9425
dsheth@ij.org

Ilya Shapiro
Counsel of Record
Cato Institute
1000 Massachusetts Ave. NW
Washington, DC 20001
(202) 842-0200
ishapiro@cato.org

Thomas K. Maher
N.C. Office of Indigent Def. Services
123 W. Main St., Suite 400
Durham, N.C. 27705
(919) 354-7200
thomas.k.maher@nccourts.org

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 CERTIFICATE OF COMPLIANCE
1. This memorandum complies with the type-volume limitation of Fed. R. App. P.
32(a)(7)(B) because it contains 5,403 words, excluding the parts exempted by
Fed. R. App. P. 32(a)(7)(B)(iii).
2. This memorandum complies with the typeface requirements of Fed. R. App. P.
32(a)(5) and the type style requirements of Fed. R. App. P. 32(a)(6) because it
has been prepared in a proportionally spaced typeface using Microsoft Word
2007 in Times New Roman, 14 point font.

/s/ Ilya Shapiro
July 8, 2015

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 CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE
I hereby certify that, I electronically filed the foregoing with the Clerk of
Court, who will enter it into the CM/ECF system, which will send a notification of
such filing (NEF) to the appropriate counsel.

/s/ Ilya Shapiro
July 8, 2015

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