United States Court of Appeals,
Fifth Circuit.
No. 96-50427.
UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee,
v.
REAL PROPERTY LOCATED AT 14301 GATEWAY BOULEVARD WEST, EL PASO
COUNTY TEXAS, with all Appurtunances and Improvements Thereon,
Defendant,
City of El Paso, et al., Claimants,
Eduardo Gonzalez Quirarte and Laura Patricia Gonzalez, Claimants-
Appellants.
Sept. 26, 1997.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western
District of Texas.
Before JONES, EMILIO M. GARZA and PARKER, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
The district court relied on the "fugitive disentitlement"
doctrine to strike Eduardo Gonzalez Quirarte's and Laura Patricia
Gonzalez's ("the claimants") claim and answer regarding the
forfeiture of the respondent property. The Supreme Court has since
held that the "fugitive disentitlement" doctrine does not permit a
district court to enter summary judgment in favor of the government
in a civil forfeiture case based on a claimant's fugitive status.
See Degen v. United States, --- U.S. ----, 116 S.Ct. 1777, 135
L.Ed.2d 102 (1996). Thus, the claimants urge us to reverse the
district court's forfeiture judgment based on Degen.
It is well-settled, however, that we will not reverse a
judgment of the district court if it can be affirmed on any ground,
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regardless of whether the district court articulated the ground.
United Indus., Inc. v. Simon-Hartley, Ltd., 91 F.3d 762, 765 n. 6
(5th Cir.1996); see also Bickford v. International Speedway Corp.,
654 F.2d 1028, 1031 (5th Cir.1981) ("[R]eversal is inappropriate if
the ruling of the district court can be affirmed on any grounds,
regardless of whether those grounds were used by the district
court."). We have required strict compliance with the provisions
of Rule C(6) of the Supplemental Rules for Certain Admiralty and
Maritime Claims, the rule that governs the filing of claims and
answers in forfeiture suits. See United States v. $38,570 U.S.
Currency, 950 F.2d 1108, 1115 (5th Cir.1992) (finding that district
court did not abuse its discretion in striking claim and answer as
untimely under Rule C(6)).
Here, prior to ruling on the government's motion to strike the
claim and answer, the district court denied the claimants' request
for an extension of time in which to file their claim and answer.
As a result, the claim and answer that the claimants ultimately
filed were untimely. In granting the government's motion to
strike, however, the district court did not address the timeliness
of the filings.
Had the district court not specifically refused to extend the
claimants' filing deadlines, we could perhaps construe the court's
consideration of the merits of the motion to strike as an implicit,
discretionary grant of an extension. See Supplemental Rules for
Certain Maritime and Admiralty Claims, 28 U.S.C. Supplemental Rule
C(6) ("The claimant of property that is the subject of an action in
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rem shall file a claim within 10 days after process has been
executed, or within such additional time as may be allowed by the
court ....") (emphasis added). To the contrary, however, the
district court denied the claimants an extension, thus indicating
the court's intention that the claimants adhere to the time limits
contained in Rule C(6). Accordingly, we will not construe the
district court's consideration of the merits of the motion to
strike as a discretionary extension of the filing deadlines.
Rather than reaching the merits of the motion, the district court
could have struck the claim and answer as untimely.
We AFFIRM on that ground.
EMILIO M. GARZA, Circuit Judge, specially concurring:
I write separately, joined by Judge Parker, to request the
Supreme Court to reconsider its opinion in Degen v. United States,
--- U.S. ----, 116 S.Ct. 1777, 135 L.Ed.2d 102 (1996), and consider
Degen's application on the southwestern border of the United
States.
Clearly, the Court did not consider the practical effects of
Degen's application peculiar to the southwestern border. In Degen,
a federal grand jury indicted Degen for distribution of marijuana,
money laundering and other crimes, and the government sought the
forfeiture of properties in California, Nevada and Hawaii allegedly
purchased with proceeds of Degen's drug sales or used to facilitate
the sales. Despite moving to Switzerland, a nation whose
extradition treaty did not oblige it return Degen to the United
States, Degen filed an answer in the civil action to contest
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forfeiture. The district court granted a government motion to
strike Degen's answer and entered summary judgment against him,
holding that Degen was not entitled to be heard in the civil
forfeiture action because he remained outside the country,
unamenable to criminal prosecution. United States v. Real Property
Located at Incline Village, 755 F.Supp. 308 (D.Nev.1990). The
Ninth Circuit affirmed. United States v. Real Property Located at
Incline Village, 47 F.3d 1511 (9th Cir.1995).
The Supreme Court reversed the Ninth Circuit, holding that the
fugitive disentitlement doctrine did not permit the district court
to enter summary judgment in favor of the government in a civil
forfeiture case based on the claimant's fugitive status. The Court
found that the district court had alternative means of protecting
the government's interests and that therefore "the harsh sanction
of absolute disentitlement" was not justified. Degen, --- U.S. at
----, 116 S.Ct. at 1782. The Court concluded that "[a] court
made-rule striking Degen's claims and entering summary judgment
against him as a sanction [for failing to appear in the criminal
proceedings] ... would be an arbitrary response to the conduct it
is supposed to redress or discourage." Id. at ----, 116 S.Ct. at
1783.
Regardless of the merit of the Court's concern for avoiding
"an arbitrary response," the practical effect of the Court's
decision is to encourage immigration to a "safe" country by
creating a legal safe harbor for criminal defendants, an option
particularly attractive to those defendants who reside and operate
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their criminal enterprises in the southwestern states. The
economy, recreation, history and people in Texas cities such as
Brownsville, Laredo, Eagle Pass, Del Rio and El Paso are virtually
integrated with their sister cities of Matamoros, Nuevo Laredo,
Piedras Negras, Cuidad Acuna and Juarez respectively; presumably
border cities in New Mexico, Arizona and California exhibit similar
integration with their Mexican counterparts. Mexican and American
citizens alike regularly cross the border to conduct business, to
purchase necessities, to enjoy entertainment, and to visit
relatives on "the other side." Indeed, for residents of border
communities, crossing the international bridge is akin to visiting
another part of town, not another nation. The international border
is a barrier only in the legal sense that different laws govern
each side of the line.
For the many United States district courts located in border
districts, however, the border compounds, rather than eliminates,
legal problems. Smuggling and its attendant crimes—whether they
involve cattle and horses in frontier times, cotton during the
Civil War, arms during the Mexican Revolution, whiskey during
Prohibition or narcotics in the late twentieth century—are endemic
to the southwest border. Control of crime along the southwestern
border is a constant struggle for the courts and law enforcement
organizations charged with that responsibility. Degen would further
encourage defendants to flout the laws of this nation and to
preserve both their liberty and their property by simply "moving
across town" to the other side of the border. The Court also
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exacerbates the difficulties most trial judges have managing their
dockets. Even assuming the measures listed by the Court are
effective "means to resolve these dilemmas," id. at --, --- U.S. at
----, 116 S.Ct. at 1782, they further overburden courts that are
already handling upwards of 1,000 criminal indictments annually.
In addition, the three examples the Court gives as means by which
district courts can address the dilemmas presented by defendants
who simultaneously flee criminal prosecution and contest civil
forfeitures will only increase the drain on scarce judicial
resources.
The instant case exemplifies my concerns about Degen. Here,
a grand jury returned a superseding indictment against Eduardo
Gonzalez Quirarte, Avelino Gil-Terrazas, and several other
individuals charging them with various narcotics offenses. The
government alleged that Quirarte and Terrazas were the principals
in the organization, with Terrazas running the drug smuggling
operations in the United States and Quirarte running the operations
in Mexico. After trial, Terrazas was convicted of conspiracy to
distribute marijuana and cocaine and of money laundering. The
court sentenced him to 360 months in custody.
Quirarte, however, did not appear for trial, fleeing with his
wife from El Paso, Texas to Ciudad Juarez, Mexico to avoid
prosecution. Quirarte has never returned to the United States to
answer the criminal charges against him. He has, however,
contested the civil forfeiture proceeding the government instituted
against him based on the drug trafficking and money laundering
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activities alleged in the indictment. Protected by Degen, a
criminal defendant such as Quirarte can make the short drive from
El Paso to Juarez and thereby ensure both his immunity from the
American criminal justice system and the protection of American
civil laws. Surely the Supreme Court did not intend such a result.
As an aside, there are two federal judges in El Paso who
preside over dockets with more than 400 criminal cases apiece.
Degen will exacerbate, not "resolve [this] dilemma[ ]." Id., ---
U.S. at ----, 116 S.Ct. at 1782.
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