Also known as: instrumentalities or fruits of a crime · instrumentality of crime · fruit of crime · forfeiture · proceeds of crime
Written by attorneys — see sources below.
2 senses
Property used to commit a crime. Such property may be seized without a warrant from a public place when probable cause exists to believe it is forfeitable contraband.
Property obtained as proceeds of criminal activity. Such property may be seized without a warrant from a public place when probable cause exists to believe it is forfeitable contraband.
Property used to commit a crime. Such property may be seized without a warrant from a public place when probable cause exists to believe it is forfeitable contraband.
A defendant arranged for a witness to be threatened so she would not testify about the defendant's use of a truck in a robbery. Because the defendant acted with intent to prevent testimony, the witness's prior statements were admissible under the forfeiture-by-wrongdoing doctrine.
Officers obtained a warrant to tap a phone inside a vehicle they had probable cause to believe was stolen and used to transport contraband. The recorded conversations were admissible because the car itself constituted an instrumentality of the ongoing criminal enterprise.
Property obtained as proceeds of criminal activity. Such property may be seized without a warrant from a public place when probable cause exists to believe it is forfeitable contraband.
Campus police received a tip that Samantha used embezzled grant funds to buy her sedan. Officers located the car in a faculty lot open to visitors during business hours and seized it without a warrant on probable cause that the vehicle itself was forfeitable contraband. A later inventory search uncovered cash and falsified ledgers in the glove box.
Investigators learned that Cameron paid cash for a cargo van two weeks after receiving large deposits from an illegal sports-betting ring. They seized the van from a stadium lot accessible from public streets and conducted an inventory search that revealed betting slips hidden under the floor panels.
Each sense below has its own examples, sources, and questions.
The petitioners, including Roy Olmstead as the leading figure, were convicted in the District Court for the Western District of Washington of conspiracy to violate the National Prohibition Act by importing, transporting, possessing, and selling intoxicating liquors. The evidence against them was gathered by four federal prohibition officers who intercepted messages on the petitioners' telephones over many months by attaching wires in the basement of their office building and in nearby streets without any trespass on the defendants' property. The operation involved a large organization with multiple offices, vessels for importation from British Columbia, storage caches, and dozens of employees, generating sales up to $176,000 in a single month. The defendants moved to suppress the wiretap evidence before trial, but the district court overruled the objection and admitted the testimony of the officers regarding the intercepted conversations along with other evidence. The Circuit Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed the convictions in 1927. The Supreme Court granted certiorari limited to the issue of whether the wiretapping evidence violated the Fourth and Fifth Amendments.
View case2 common questions
Police may seize a vehicle from a public place without a warrant when they have probable cause to believe the vehicle itself is forfeitable contraband. The subsequent inventory search yields admissible evidence if the initial seizure was lawful.
A location remains public for seizure purposes when it is accessible from public streets and routinely used by visitors or delivery drivers even if signs restrict use or a permit is required for overnight parking.
After inheriting a parcel purchased with drug-sale proceeds, the heir offered it for sale subject to a reasonable right of first refusal held by a designated family member. The preemptive right did not restrain alienation because the price and exercise period were reasonable under the governing standards.
A defendant was charged with receiving property he knew had been taken in a burglary. The goods themselves were fruits of the crime and therefore subject to forfeiture even though the defendant claimed he had acquired them for value.
In December 1948, Morissette went hunting on a large tract of land in Michigan that the Government had used as a practice bombing range for the Air Force. Spent bomb casings from the range had been dumped into heaps and left exposed to the weather for four years or more. Morissette collected three tons of the casings, flattened them at a nearby farm, and sold them for eighty-four dollars. Morissette worked as a fruit stand operator in the summer and as a trucker and scrap iron collector in the winter. He was an honorably discharged veteran of World War II who had a good reputation among his neighbors. He loaded the casings onto his truck and transported them in broad daylight without any effort to conceal what he was doing. When authorities began an investigation, Morissette voluntarily and candidly told them the whole story, explaining that he believed the casings were abandoned and that he had no intention of stealing them. He was indicted for unlawfully, willfully, and knowingly stealing and converting property of the United States valued at eighty-four dollars in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 641. At trial, the District Court refused to permit Morissette to show that he thought the property was abandoned or to argue that he lacked criminal intent. The court instructed the jury that if it believed the government testimony, Morissette was guilty, and the jury convicted him. The court sentenced him to two months in prison or a fine of two hundred dollars. The Court of Appeals affirmed the conviction. The Supreme Court granted certiorari.
View case1 common questions
Probable cause that the vehicle was purchased with proceeds of criminal activity satisfies the standard. Bank records showing a cash purchase shortly after illicit deposits are ordinarily sufficient.
…to the Confrontation Clause that make no claim to be a surrogate means of assessing reliability. For example, the rule of forfeiture by wrongdoing (which we accept) extinguishes confrontation claims on essentially equitable grounds; it does not purport to be an alternative means of determining reliability. See Reynolds…