Filed: Aug. 28, 2017
Latest Update: Aug. 28, 2017
Summary: MEMORANDUM AND ORDER CHARLES A. SHAW , District Judge . This civil action for equitable relief is before the Court on plaintiff Calvin Glover's Motion for Return of Property filed pursuant to Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 41(g). 1 The government opposes the motion. Plaintiff has not filed a reply and the time to do so has passed. As a result, the motion is ready for decision. For the following reasons, the motion will be denied without an evidentiary hearing. In the Motion for Retur
Summary: MEMORANDUM AND ORDER CHARLES A. SHAW , District Judge . This civil action for equitable relief is before the Court on plaintiff Calvin Glover's Motion for Return of Property filed pursuant to Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 41(g). 1 The government opposes the motion. Plaintiff has not filed a reply and the time to do so has passed. As a result, the motion is ready for decision. For the following reasons, the motion will be denied without an evidentiary hearing. In the Motion for Return..
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MEMORANDUM AND ORDER
CHARLES A. SHAW, District Judge.
This civil action for equitable relief is before the Court on plaintiff Calvin Glover's Motion for Return of Property filed pursuant to Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 41(g).1 The government opposes the motion. Plaintiff has not filed a reply and the time to do so has passed. As a result, the motion is ready for decision. For the following reasons, the motion will be denied without an evidentiary hearing.
In the Motion for Return of Property, Mr. Glover requests that the Court order the Government to return $3,000 in U.S. Currency that he asserts was confiscated from him by federal officers during a traffic stop on April 1, 2007. Glover asserts that federal agents left a message on his mother's answering machine in April 2007 "to collect the $3,000 dollars from there [sic] office," but when Glover went to claim the money the agents questioned him but did not return the cash. Mr. Glover asserts that his criminal proceedings have ended, and appears to suggest the Government has no right to continue to retain the seized cash.
Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 41(g) provides that a "person aggrieved by an unlawful search and seizure of property or by the deprivation of property may move for the property's return." After the Government filed its opposition in this case, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals held that the six-year catch-all limitations period of 28 U.S.C. § 2401(a) applies to motions for return of property under Rule 41(g) that are filed after the termination of criminal proceedings. United States v. Mendez, 860 F.3d 1127, 1149-50 (8th Cir. 2017). The statute of limitations begins to run and the cause of action accrues once the district court enters judgment. Id. at 1150.
Judgment was entered in Mr. Glover's criminal case on October 7, 2008. See United States v. Glover, No. 4:07-CR-767 CAS (E.D. Mo.) (Doc. 197). Because Mr. Glover did not file his Motion for Return of Property under Rule 41(g) until February 2017, more than eight years later, it is barred by the six-year statute of limitations of § 2401(a) and this Court lacks jurisdiction over it. See Loudner v. United States, 108 F.3d 896, 900 (8th Cir. 1997) ("Filing within the applicable statute of limitations is treated as a condition precedent to the government's waiver of sovereign immunity, and cases in which the government has not waived its immunity are outside the subject-matter jurisdiction of the district courts.").2
Accordingly,
IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that plaintiff Calvin Glover's Motion for Return of Property is DENIED. [Doc. 1]
