United States v. Bailey, No. 12-1192 (8th Cir. 2012)
Annotate this CaseMinneapolis police arrested defendant in 2003 and seized several items of his property. After his conviction and the disposition of his appeals, defendant moved under Rule 41 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure to have his property returned. The district court denied the motion. The court reversed and remanded for an evidentiary hearing. On remand the district court denied defendant's request to subpoena a witness and declined to convert his motion into a civil action for damages. Defendant subsequently appealed. Since the state court judge voluntarily wrote the district court and confirmed that she had not handled the evidence before or during trial and had been absent after trial when the property was lost, the court need not address any issue of judicial immunity or whether the district court abused its discretion by not issuing a subpoena. The court also held that the district court abused its discretion in denying defendant's motion to convert the Rule 41 action into a civil claim for damages where defendant should have been allowed an opportunity to convert his Rule 41 motion into an action for damages against the government because the government no longer possessed the property at issue.
Court Description: Criminal case - Forfeiture. For the court's prior opinion in the matter, see U.S. v. Bailey, 407 F. App'x 74 (8th Cir. 2011). No error in denying request to subpoena a state court judge who hd not been involved in the loss of defendant's property; district court abused its discretion by denying defendant's motion to convert his Rule 41 action into a civil claim for damages once it was clear that the government no longer possessed the property.
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