United States v. Dean ( 1996 )

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
for the Fifth Circuit
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No. 96-40215
Summary Calendar
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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
VERSUS
REGINALD J. DEAN,
Defendant-Appellant.
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Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Eastern District of Texas
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November 5, 1996
Before DAVIS, EMILIO M. GARZA, and STEWART, Circuit Judges
PER CURIAM:
Reginald Dean, filing pro se, appeals the district court’s
denial of his motion for the return of money seized in connection
with his arrest for bank robbery. We affirm.
I.
On September 20, 1985, Dean was arrested in connection with
the robbery of the First National Bank of Bullard, Texas, from
which $81,300 had been taken the day before. On the same day as
the arrest, FBI agents executed a search warrant at Dean's house.
The agents found $41,000 labeled with straps bearing the bank's
name in the trunk of Dean's car. The agents also found $1,686 in
assorted bills in Dean's pants' pocket and $4,950 in $50 bills in
a brown paper bag under his mattress. According to the government,
the bank requested that the FBI remit recovered monies to its
insurance carrier; ultimately, the FBI released $75,446, consisting
of money recovered from Dean and an accomplice, to the insurer.
Subsequent investigation linked Dean to an earlier robbery of
Tyler National Bank. In 1986, Dean was convicted of both robberies
and sentenced to serve thirty years. In 1987, Dean sought, and was
granted, the return of jewelry seized at the time of his arrest;
his motion did not include a request for the return of cash.
Some years later, in 1995, Dean moved for the return of the
$6,636 taken by FBI agents from his pants' pocket and under his
mattress. Dean alleged that the government took the funds without
showing that they were proceeds from illegal activity. The
government, in response, contended that the funds were obtained
from either the Bullard or Tyler bank robbery, and, therefore, were
unlawfully possessed by Dean.
The district court denied Dean's motion and held that he
failed to show any legal entitlement to the money. Dean timely
appealed the district court's decision.
II.
Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 41(e) provides that:
A person aggrieved by an unlawful search and seizure or by the
deprivation of property may move the district court . . . for
the return of the property on the ground that such person is
entitled to lawful possession of the property. The court
shall receive evidence on any issue of fact necessary to the
decision of the motion.
Fed. R. Crim. P. 41(e) (emphasis added). A criminal defendant is
presumed to have the right to the return of his property once it is
no longer needed as evidence. United States v. Mills, 991 F.2d
609, 612 (9th Cir. 1993); see also United States v. Palmer, 565
F.2d 1063 (9th Cir. 1977) (ordering return of money seized at time
of defendant's arrest for bank robbery where there was no evidence
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that money was property of bank and bank made no claim of
ownership). However, the government may rebut that presumption by
showing that the defendant did not possess the property lawfully.
Mills, 991 F.2d at 612 (noting that claim of possession adverse to
defendant, such as restitution order, rebutted defendant's
presumption of entitlement to money seized at time of arrest);
United States v. Burzynski Cancer Research Institute, 819 F.2d
1301, 1311 (5th Cir. 1987) (holding that movants failed to show
right to lawful possession of patients' records), cert. denied, 484
U.S. 1065, 108 S. Ct. 1026, 98 L. Ed. 2d 990 (1988); cf. United
States v. Duncan, 918 F.2d 647, 654 (6th Cir. 1990)(concluding that
government's interest in ensuring payment of monetary penalties
imposed as part of sentence outweighed defendant's interest in
return of money), cert. denied, 500 U.S. 933, 111 S. Ct. 2055, 114
L. Ed. 2d 461 (1991).
We review a district court's interpretation of Rule 41(e) de
novo. See In re Grand Jury Subpoenas Dated Dec. 10, 1987, 926 F.2d
847, 855 (9th Cir. 1991). A district court's factual determination
of lawful possession, or ownership, will be upheld unless clearly
erroneous. See id.; United States v. Maez, 915 F.2d 1466, 1468
(10th Cir. 1990), cert. denied, 498 U.S. 1104, 111 S. Ct. 1005, 112
L. Ed. 2d 1087 (1991).
The Tenth Circuit applied these principles in Maez. There,
Maez argued that he was entitled to $5,844 seized in a search
incident to his arrest for bank robbery. Maez, 915 F.2d at 1468.
The court, in affirming the district court's denial of the Rule
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41(e) motion, acknowledged that Maez's pre-seizure possession of
the money established a prima facie case that he was entitled to
it. Id. However, it held that the government had sufficiently
established, through circumstantial evidence, that the money
rightfully belonged to the bank. Id. The court cited Maez's own
guilty plea, eyewitness testimony identifying him as one of the
bank robbers, and the lack of a credible explanation for the
presence of a large amount of cash--nearly half of the amount
stolen--in his closet.
Similarly, in the case at hand, the government has
sufficiently rebutted Dean's presumption of entitlement. FBI
agents found proceeds from the Bullard robbery in Dean's car, his
accomplice testified as to Dean's involvement in the crime, and a
jury trial established Dean's guilt. In addition, the record
indicates that the government offered the $6,636, along with the
bundled $41,000, into evidence at a suppression hearing and at
trial. Dean offered nothing to distinguish the $6,636 from the
$41,000 bearing bank labels. The judge was entitled to view the
jury's verdict of guilty as an implicit acceptance of the
government's theory that all of the money constituted proceeds from
the bank robbery.
The judge was also entitled to consider the fact that a year
after trial, Dean moved for the return of jewelry seized during the
1985 search, but did not include a request for the return of money.
On the basis of the facts before it, the district court found that
Dean did not show he was legally entitled to the property at issue.
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This finding is not clearly erroneous.1
Dean further contends that the district court should have
conducted an evidentiary hearing before denying his motion. This
contention is meritless. This court reviews the district court's
denial of an evidentiary hearing under Rule 41(e) for abuse of
discretion. Dickens v. Lewis, 750 F.2d 1251, 1255 (5th Cir. 1984).
Evidentiary hearings are not granted as a matter of course; such a
hearing is required only if any disputed material facts are
"necessary to the decision of the motion." United States v.
Harrelson, 705 F.2d 733, 737 (5th Cir. 1983) (citations omitted);
Fed. R. Crim. P. 41(e). Factual allegations in the defendant's
motion must be "sufficiently definite, specific, detailed, and
nonconjectural, to enable the court to conclude that a substantial
claim is presented." Harrelson, 705 F.2d at 737 (citations
omitted). General or conclusionary assertions will not suffice.
Id.
Dean, in support of his Rule 41(e) motion, argues to us, as he
did to the district court, that the money at issue "was seized by
federal authorities without showing it was proceeds from any
illegal activity." Dean alleged no facts to support that claim;
nor did he seek to rebut the government's circumstantial evidence.
He provided no explanation as to how he legitimately came to
possess the $6,636 found under his mattress and in his pockets.
1
Because we conclude that Dean was not legally entitled to the funds,
we need not consider other issues in the case, such as whether the suit
could be barred by the doctrine of laches or other equitable defenses or
whether the government could be subjected to an action for the return of
property under Rule 41(e) when it no longer possesses that property.
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Because Dean's motion does not present a disputed factual
issue, we cannot say the judge's denial of Dean's motion without a
hearing was an abuse of discretion.
III.
For these reasons, the district court's denial of Dean's Rule
41(e) motion is AFFIRMED.
AFFIRMED.
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