Justices Ban Use of Loot for Legal Fees

The Supreme Court ruled today that the government may confiscate from criminal defendants money and property they intended to use to pay their legal fees.

The justices, in separate 5-4 votes in cases from Virginia and New York, handed federal prosecutors a major victory in their fight against illegal drug dealing.

The court said a defendant’s constitutional rights to due process and to be represented by a lawyer in a criminal case are not violated when profits of an allegedly illegal enterprise are seized.

(Los Angeles federal prosecutors have forfeited millions of dollars in crime-related assets, but have moved only once to seize property directly earmarked for payment of legal fees. In that case, the government is seeking to forfeit a $248,000 Chatsworth house that an accused drug dealer, Brian Bennett, signed over to his lawyer as partial payment for his defense.)

‘Not Rightfully His’

Justice Byron R. White, who wrote for the court in both cases, said no one has a constitutional right “to spend another person’s money for services rendered by an attorney, even if those funds are the only way that that defendant will be able to retain the attorney of his choice. The money, though in his possession, is not rightfully his.”

He was joined by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justices Sandra Day O’Connor, Antonin Scalia and Anthony M. Kennedy.

Justice Harry A. Blackmun, in a dissenting opinion, said, “It is unseemly and unjust for the government to beggar those it prosecutes in order to disable their defense at trial.”

He said the court “should heed the warnings” of federal trial judges who “understand, perhaps far better than we, the devastating consequences of attorney’s fee forfeiture for the integrity of our adversarial system of justice.”

Blackmun was joined by Justices William J. Brennan, Thurgood Marshall and John Paul Stevens.

No Constitutional Right

But White compared the plight of the accused drug dealer to that of a robbery suspect.

A robbery suspect has no constitutional right “to use funds he has stolen from a bank to retain an attorney to defend him if he is apprehended,” he said.

“If defendants have a right to spend forfeitable assets on attorney’s fees, why not on exercises of the (constitutional) right to speak, practice one’s religion or travel?” White asked rhetorically.

Also, he said, a defendant’s assets may be frozen before conviction if there is probable cause to believe that the money or property was obtained illegally.

In one case decided today, the law firm of Caplin & Drysdale here was denied $170,000 in legal fees for representing Christopher Reckmeyer. He pleaded guilty in 1985 in Virginia to charges stemming from what prosecutors said was his role as kingpin of a multimillion-dollar drug operation.

In the second case, the Reagan Administration had appealed a ruling that would have allowed Peter Monsanto access to assets worth $400,000 to help him pay his lawyers.