Recent Case Results - Successful Outcomes in Robbery, Burglary, Probation, Possession, and Sex Crimes Cases

Our Philadelphia criminal defense lawyers have continued to obtain successful results on behalf of our clients in cases involving sex crimes, robbery, burglary, and Possession with the Intent to Deliver. These successful outcomes have included bail reductions, the dismissal of all charges, favorable results in pre-trial Motions to Suppress, and probationary and house arrest sentences. In the past two months alone, we have achieved a number of wins, including:

Commonwealth v. S.A. - S.A. was charged with rape, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, sexual assault, and related charges. The magistrate initially set bail at an extremely high amount due to the seriousness of the charges, and SA was unable to make bail. Within 24 hours of being retained, Attorney Goldstein obtained a significant bail reduction, and the defendant was able to make bail. After the defendant made bail, Attorney Goldstein was also able to have all charges dismissed at the preliminary hearing.

Commonwealth v. H.S. - Our criminal defense lawyers were able to obtain a full dismissal of all charges in a burglary case against HS at the preliminary hearing.

Commonwealth v. S.V. - Our attorneys were able to obtain a sentence of house arrest and drug treatment for a defendant who was convicted of drug charges. After the defendant was convicted of Possession with the Intent to Deliver, our defense attorneys arranged for the defendant's other open matters, including a case for which the defendant was on probation, to be brought in before the sentencing judge so that the defendant could be sentenced on all of the cases at the same time and only have one back judge. This procedure is called a 701 consolidation, and it can be very helpful in terms of avoiding multiple probation judges and consecutive sentences for a defendant who has violated probation.

Although the sentencing guidelines called for a state prison sentence and the defendant had been on probation at the time of the new arrest, our defense attorneys were able to convince the sentencing judge to give the defendant a chance to serve a house arrest sentence and obtain drug treatment. By investigating the client's background, our lawyers learned that despite being on probation for a similar offense, the defendant had never been ordered to undergo any kind of addiction treatment. Now, instead of serving time in state prison, the client will have the chance to receive treatment in the community, and the Court will also assist the client with obtaining educational and job training.

Commonwealth v S.A. - Attorney Goldstein obtained a full dismissal of all charges in a Robbery case at the preliminary hearing. In this case, the complainant alleged that the defendant had been part of a group that assaulted him and stole his tablet. After the complainant testified that he had been under the influence of prescription medication at the time of the incident and was no longer sure if the defendant had been present, Attorney Goldstein was able to convince the preliminary hearing judge to dismiss all charges. Prior to the preliminary hearing, Attorney Goldstein obtained a significant bail reduction which allowed the client to fight the case from out of custody.

Cmmonwealth v. D.S. - Our attorneys successfully moved for a bail reduction in a felony gun possession case. After the judge at the preliminary hearing refused to reduce bail, Attorney Goldstein immediately moved for a bail reduction in the Court of Common Pleas, and the Common Pleas judge reduced bail from $35,000 to $15,000.

In Re: J.W.: We negotiated an admission to Criminal Trespass in a juvenile delinquency case where the client was originally charged with felony burglary for breaking and entering into a school after hours. After hearing the defense's mitigation evidence and recommendation at disposition (sentencing), the Family Court judge found that the client was not in need of supervision and dismissed all of the charges. The defendant will not even have to be on probation, and the entire record of the case can be expunged.

Commonwealth v. E.G. - All charges dismissed prior to trial in domestic violence case involving Simple Assault and Recklessly Endangering Another Person charges.

Commonwealth v. M.M. - Client was arrested on a potential technical probation violation. Attorney Goldstein filed a motion to lift the detainer and had a hearing scheduled within a week. At the hearing, our defense attorneys convinced the judge to find that the client had not violated the terms of his probation. The client was immediately released the same day.

Commonwealth v. W.L. - The defendant was arrested on a bench warrant due to a failure to show up for court for a preliminary hearing. Our attorneys were able to have the bench warrant lifted without a finding of contempt of court and obtain Sign on Bond bail, meaning the defendant was released without an increase in bail.

Commonwealth v B.M. - We were able to successfully have Possession with the Intent to Deliver PCP and Conspiracy charges dismissed, leaving only charges related to marijuana sales for trial.

Commonwealth v. J.W. - Our defense attorneys obtained the dismissal of charges of selling crack cocaine and conspiracy at a preliminary hearing. The defendant will now face much less serious charges related only to marijuana in a trial in the Municipal Court. A conviction for Possession with the Intent to Deliver of crack cocaine may often involve jail time, whereas even a conviction for PWID of marijuana in the Municipal Court is more likely to result in probation.

Commonwealth v. M.G. - Successfully negotiated Section 17 disposition on drug possession charges. The Section 17 program requires the defendant to plead no contest and be placed on a period of probation. If the defendant successfully completes the probation, then the charges will be dismissed and can be expunged.

Commonwealth v. A.C. - Successfully negotiated for client who was facing assault charges to obtain entry into a Domestic Violence diversion program. If the client pays a small fine, completes a number of counseling sessions, and stays out of trouble for approximately four months, the entire case will be dismissed and can be expunged. Pursuant to the terms of the program, the client was not required to enter into any kind of plea or admission of guilt.

Commonwealth v. J.H. - Successfully negotiated for client's entry into drug treatment court for client facing two cases of Possession with the Intent to Deliver. If client completes the program, the charges will be dismissed and can be expunged, and client will not have a felony record.

Do Police Need A Warrant To Search A Hotel Room?

Police Searches of Hotel Rooms and Other Rented Spaces

Under the United States and Pennsylvania Constitutions, law enforcement officers need a search warrant anytime they want to search a suspect's private residence with few exceptions. If the police do not obtain a warrant prior to conducting the search of a home, then the owner of the home and any guests who are staying there could potentially have any incriminating evidence which was found in the search suppressed and excluded from trial. This same basic rule requiring police to get a search warrant also applies when police want to search a hotel room. If you are a guest in a hotel, the police cannot search your room without a search warrant. Unfortunately for the defendant in Commonwealth v. Williams, the Superior Court held that the defendant has the burden at the Motion to Suppress hearing of showing that the defendant actually rented or was staying in the hotel room.  

Commonwealth v. Williams

In Williams, the defendant was charged with three counts of Possession with the Intent to Deliver, possession of drug paraphernalia, and two counts of possession of a controlled substance. The defendant moved to suppress the evidence because police searched the hotel room in which the drugs were recovered without a search warrant. At the motions hearing, the prosecution established that police officers in Erie, Pennsylvania responded to a 911 call for a shooting on March 18, 2016 at the defendant's home. Once there, police found a dead pit bull, lots of blood, and a man who had been shot in the leg and face. Police did not find any other victims or the shooter, so they began interviewing the neighbors. One neighbor informed police that the defendant lived in the first floor apartment at that location, and he had seen one of the defendant's vehicles leaving the area around the time of the shooting. The officer looked in the window of the apartment and did not see anyone home, so he radioed for the car to be stopped. 

Other officers stopped the defendant in the car which the neighbor had seen. Once stopped, the defendant told police that he had been staying in a nearby a hotel with a friend because of ongoing domestic issues with his girlfriend. He showed the officer a key card for a hotel room, and he told the officer that the key was for room 111. He also told the officer that he was in room 111 at the time of the shooting.

Following this conversation, officers removed the defendant from the vehicle and frisked him. They also frisked the passenger and recovered a gun. At some point, after the conversation had occurred, officers also searched the car for weapons, and during this search, they found that the defendant had taken the hotel key card from his wallet and discarded it in the vehicle. Williams had apparently dropped the card between the driver's side seat and the center console of the vehicle, so the police took it. 

Based on this information, an officer went to room 111 and knocked on the door. When no one answered, the officer went to the front desk and spoke with hotel management. Management informed the officer that the key card was not for room 111 and that the card was actually for room 231. However, the employee did not know who had actually rented room 231. Further, the employee stated that the hotel did not have surveillance footage which would show who had rented the room. 

Apparently concerned that another shooting victim might be in room 231, the officer went and knocked on the door for that room. When no one answered, the officer decided that it was an emergency. Instead of waiting for a search warrant, he used the key card and opened the door. The officer immediately smelled marijuana and found drugs and drug paraphernalia in the room. He did a quick check of the room for shooting victims, and then he obtained a search warrant to recover the drugs and paraphernalia. 

For reasons which are not explained in the Court's opinion, the defense did not challenge the stop and search of the defendant's vehicle or subsequent seizure of the room key. Instead, the defense argued that the drugs in the hotel room should be suppressed because the police were required to obtain a search warrant prior to entering the room. The Commonwealth responded with two arguments. First, the Commonwealth aruged that the defendant failed to establish that Williams had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the hotel room because there was insufficient evidence to show that he had rented or was staying in the room. Second, the Commonwealth argued that the exigent circumstances surrounding the shooting justified the police decision to enter the room without a search warrant because there could have been another victim who needed medical assistance in the hotel room.  

The Exigent Circumstances Exception to the Warrant Requirement

The exigent circumstances doctrine permits law enforcement to enter a house without a warrant during a true emergency. If police reasonably believe that someone is dying inside a home, then the police do not have to wait for a search warrant before entering the home and rendering aid. Of course, if they find something incriminating in plain view during their attempts to render aid, then that evidence wil be admissible at trial. This issue often comes up in cases involving burglary alarms. If a burglary alarm goes off and police do not find anyone at the scene when they arrive to investigate, they may decide to enter the home without a warrant and check for burglars. If they find your drugs and guns inside the house while looking for burglars, it will often be difficult to have that evidence suppressed despite the absence of a search warrant. 

The trial court agreed with the defense and granted the Motion to Suppress. The trial court found that police were required to obtain a search warrant prior to entering the hotel room because a guest in a hotel room has a reasonable expectation of privacy in the room. Further, the court found that the exigent circusmtances exception to the warrant requirement did not apply as police had no real basis for believing another shooting victim to be in the room. Therefore, the court found that even though the drugs were in plain view once police entered the room, the drugs should be suppressed because police only saw the drugs because they illegally entered the room without a search warrant. 

The Superior Court disagreed and reversed the Order granting the Motion to Suppress. The Court found that the defendant failed to establish that he had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the hotel room. The defendant presented no witnesses, so the Commonwealth's evidence was essentially uncontradicted. Under Pennsylvania law, a defendant who is charged with a possessory offense like Possession of a Controlled Substance has automatic standing; this means that the defendant may always move for the suppression of the items sized. However, in addition to having standing, a defendant who moves to suppress evidence must also have had a reasonable expectation of privacy which was violated by some sort of law enforcement action. If the defendant did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the place searched, then it does not matter if the police followed the rules. For example, if the police illegally search your house and find evidence which they wish to use against me, then I would not be able to successfully have the evidence suppressed because I did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in your house. If they wanted to use the evidence against you, you would be able to win a Motion to Suppress because it was your house, but I would be out of luck. 

What is a reasonable expectation of privacy? 

The Court noted that a reasonable expectation of privacy exists when an individual exhibits an actual or subjective expectation of privacy and that expectation is one that society is prepared to recognize as reasonable. Courts must evaluate the totality of the circumstances in deciding whether a defendant had a reasonable expectation of privacy, and the test does not depend solely on the subjective intent or belief of the defendant. Further, prior case law established that although it is the Commonwealth's burden to prove that evidence was obtained legally at a Motion to Suppress hearing, the burden remains on the defendant to show a reasonable expectation of privacy. 

Do the Police Need a Warrant to Search a Hotel Room? 

Pennsylvania law is very clear that a hotel room deserves just as much protection as a private home or office. A registered hotel guest enjoys a legitimate expectation of privacy in a hotel room during the period of time in which the room rental remains valid. However, the expectation ceases to be reasonable after the rental period has ended and/or the guest's right to occupancy has lapsed. A person also does not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in a room in which they are not staying.

Here, the defendant would have been in much better shape for the Motion to Suppress had he testified that he rented that particular hotel room and believed it to be private. However, he did not do so. Instead, he told police that he was staying in a different hotel room, and he actually tried to discard the key to the room. Further, when police spoke with hotel employees, they were told that the hotel did not know who had rented the room and also did not have any video surveillance which would show defendant staying in that room. Accordingly, the only evidence in the record was that defendant had a key to a room in which he did not admit to staying. Therefore, the Superior Court found that the defendant failed to establish that it was his room and correspondingly that he had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the room. Police were not required to obtain a warrant prior to the search, so the Court did not even reach the issue of whether emergency circumstances justified the warrantless search. 

The Williams opinion, although intellectually dishonest, illustrates the dangers of relying on the Commonwealth's evidence to establish a reasonable expectation of privacy and constitutional violation on the part of law enforcement. It also shows how unforgiving Pennsylvania's reasonable expectation of privacy doctrine can be compared to New Jersey's much more relaxed standard. Of course, it is obvious from the record that the room had been rented by Williams. A court could have easily inferred, as the trial court did, that it was his room. He had the key, he lied about which room he had rented because he knew there were lots of drugs in it, and the police only searched it because they believed it was connected to him. Indeed, if the prosecution did not believe that it was his room, then they would not have charged him with Possession. It is a certainty that the prosecution will not be withdrawing the charges despite arguing that it was not Williams' room on appeal. 

The Pros and Cons of Testifying as a Defendant in a Criminal Case

Nonetheless, once Williams claimed to have been staying in a different room, he probably needed to testify at the Motion to Suppress hearing in order to establish that it was his room. If he had testified  that it was his room, then the Court would not have been able to find that he did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy therein. There is often a great deal of reluctance to call criminal defendants to testify for fear that they will say something incriminating or open the door to some other type of incriminating evidence which would have been otherwise inadmissible. Additionally, if the defendant has prior convictions for certain crimes of dishonesty (burglary, robbery, theft, etc.), then the fact of those convictions may become admissible when the defendant testifies. However, in some cases, it is simply necessary. Here, Williams likely should have testified that it was his room. This is particularly true because the defendant's testimony during a Motion to Suppress hearing may not be used against the defendant at trial even if the Motion is denied unless the defendant testifies to something inconsistent at trial. Therefore, Williams had little to lose by conclusively establishing that it was his room.

Philadelphia Criminal Lawyers Demetra Mehta and Zak T. Goldstein

Award-Winning Philadelphia Criminal Defense Lawyers

As always, if you are facing criminal charges, we can help. Our Philadelphia Criminal Defense Lawyers have won motions to suppress drugs, guns, and other contraband in cases involving car searches, house searches, and searches of hotel rooms. We can help at both the trial and appellate level. Call 267-225-2545 for a free criminal defense strategy session.  

PA Superior Court Reverses Order Granting Motion to Suppress For Lack of Specificity in Grounds

What is a Motion to Suppress? 

The Motion to Suppress is one of the first lines of defense in any case in which the defendant is charged with possessing some kind of contraband. For a defendant who is charged with the possession of guns or drugs, it may be possible to have the evidence excluded from trial and the charges dismissed if the defendant was subject to an illegal search or seizure. In cases where the prosecution is unable to show that police or other law enforcement officers found the evidence in a manner that complies with the requirements of the United Sates and Pennsylvania Constitutions, the evidence could be suppressed by filing a Motion to Suppress. However, Pennsylvania appellate courts have increasingly required defendants to be very specific when asserting the grounds for the Motion to Suppress in the trial court.

Commonwealth v. Banks

In the case of Commonwealth v. Banks, the Superior Court has reversed an order suppressing a firearm and K2 (synthetic marijuana) whichallegedly belonged to the defendant. The Court concluded that although the trial court found that a constitutional violation had occurred, the defendant’s attorney failed to specifically allege that particular constitutional violation either in his written Motion to Suppress or oral statement of the grounds for the Motion which was made prior to the hearing. Accordingly, the Court found that the Commonwealth did not have a fair opportunity to respond to the alleged constitutional violation, and therefore the suppression order should be reversed.

Banks involved a parole search by Pennsylvania State Parole Agents. According to the agents involved, the Parole Board received an anonymous tip that Banks was violating his parole. Based on the tip, two agents went to Banks’ house and knocked on the door. When Banks emerged from the house, the parole agents questioned him on the front porch. They did not see any contraband in the house when the door was open, and they did not enter the house until after they spoke with Banks. Of course, when the agents asked whether Banks had anything in his house which would violate his parole, Banks freely told them that he had a gun and some synthetic marijuana in the house. Following Banks admissions, the agents entered the house and found the contraband. They then called the police. The police obtained a search warrant and recovered the items.

Standards for Probation Searches and Parole Searches

In Pennsylvania, probation officers and parole agents may conduct two types of searches. They may always make routine home visits in order to check on the probationer or parolee and look for any obvious parole violations. Home visits are limited to a plain-view inspection of a residence. Additionally, if they have reasonable suspicion of a parole violation, then parole agents may conduct a full search of the parolee’s residence. In general, anonymous tips do not provide reasonable suspicion because there is no basis for believing them to be trustworthy. Therefore, Banks’ attorneys filed a Motion to Suppress alleging that the firearm and K2 should be suppressed because the parole agents conducted a home search without reasonable suspicion. They further argued that the search was not part of a routine home visit because the agents went out to the house specifically to investigate the anonymous tip.

The trial court disagreed with Banks’ lawyers in part. The court found that the agents violated Banks’ rights, but for different reasons than those alleged in the Motion to Suppress. It found that the agents did not conduct a home search until after Banks confessed to having a gun and synthetic marijuana, and once Banks confessed, the officers clearly had reasonable suspicion to enter the house. However, the court found that the officers conducted the equivalent of a “Terry” stop on Banks by ordering him to come out of the house and submit to their questions. Therefore, the officers were required to have reasonable suspicion for the stop. Because the stop was based entirely on an anonymous tip, the officers did not have reasonable suspicion, and the contraband that they found was the fruit of the poisonous tree and should be suppressed.

Specificity in Motions to Suppress

On appeal, the Superior Court reversed. The Superior Court found that Banks’ lawyers had failed to comply with Rule 581(D) of the Pennsylvania Rules of Criminal Procedure. Under the rules, the defense must “state specifically and with particularity the evidence sought to be suppressed, the grounds for suppression, and the facts and events in support thereof.” In their written motion and subsequent oral grounds, the lawyers mentioned only the suspicion-less search of the residence. They never made any allegation that the interrogation on the porch was conducted without the requisite level of reasonable suspicion. Therefore, the Superior Court held that the Commonwealth was not properly on notice of the grounds for the motion and did not have a fair opportunity to respond. The Court reversed the granting of the motion and remanded the case for trial. It is unclear whether Banks will be able to amend the grounds and re-litigate the motion in the trial court. However, his lawyers will almost certainly try.

Banks is highly illustrative of the fact that the Superior Court is not currently very sympathetic to criminal defendants. The case also shows the importance of litigating in the trial court with a careful focus on the Rules of Criminal Procedure and an eye on making sure that the defendant’s rights are protected in the event of an appeal by either side. If an appellate court can avoid a difficult issue such as whether a gun was properly suppressed by finding waiver on the part of the defense, an appellate court will often do so. Judges do not want to suppress guns, and they will look for ways to avoid doing so. Therefore, it is important to make sure that all possible grounds for a motion to suppress are covered both in the written motion and orally prior to trial. It is also critically important to take all possible steps to protect the record for appeal, which means making appropriate objections and motions so that they are not waived in the event the defendant is convicted at trial.

Award-Winning Philadelphia Criminal Lawyers

Criminal Defense Lawyers Demetra Mehta and Zak Goldstein

If you are facing criminal charges, we can help. Our Philadelphia criminal defense lawyers have successfully represented thousands of clients in both trial and post-trial proceedings. We have won motions to suppress guns, drugs, and other contraband. We will do everything we can to fight for you and obtain the best possible result at trial or on appeal. Call 267-225-2545 for a free criminal defense strategy session today.

New Limits on PA Civil Asset Forfeiture

In a unanimous 73-page opinion, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has provided significantly increased protections for property-owners in civil forfeiture cases where the matter arises out of some sort of criminal wrongdoing for which there may not have been a prosecution. The Court’s opinion will particularly benefit property owners who face a civil forfeiture action due to wrongdoing committed by someone who uses or has access to the property but does not actually own it. In Commonwealth v. The Real Property and Improvements Known as 416 S. 62nd Street, Philadelphia, PA 19143 (Elizabeth Young), the Court found that the Excessive Fines Clause of the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides significant constitutional limitations on the government’s ability to seize property from someone who has not been convicted of a crime.

What is CIVIL ASSET Forfeiture? 

There have traditionally been two types of forfeiture which could relate to criminal wrongdoing. In general, criminal forfeiture is less problematic and controversial. Criminal forfeiture is the idea that someone who has been convicted of a crime may be ordered by the sentencing court to forfeit property related to the crime or profits generated through criminal activity. The criminal forfeiture is part of the defendant’s sentence, and it requires that the defendant have been convicted beyond a reasonable doubt. For example, if you are convicted of money laundering, you could be ordered by the sentencing court to forfeit the money.

Civil Forfeiture

The other type of property forfeiture, civil forfeiture, is much more problematic and controversial because it does not a criminal conviction or even a prosecution. Civil forfeiture involves the government filing a lawsuit against the property itself instead of a criminal defendant. Historically, if the government could show some sort of nexus between the property and some sort of criminal activity, then the government could seize the property even if the defendant had not committed the crime or even been involved in it. Thus, civil forfeiture at its worst allows the government to take your house if someone else in your house commits a crime while in the house even though you, as the property owner, had nothing to do with the crime. Civil forfeiture is also problematic because it disrupts law-enforcement incentives by providing cash-strapped cities and states with a financial incentive to focus on drug crime, where the police are likely to be able to seize cash, weapons, cars, and jewelry, instead of more serious crimes like rape and murders where law enforcement are not going to make any money through civil forfeiture. In an era of tight governmental budgets, civil forfeiture can be a real way for police and prosecutors to stave off cuts to their own departments. Thus, police and prosecutors could become more interested in arresting people for selling marijuana than solving violent crimes.     

Commonwealth v. Elizabeth Young

Commonwealth v. Elizabeth Young provides one of the clearest examples of civil forfeiture abuse and the need for increased protections. In Young, the Philadelphia District Attorney’s office attempted to use civil forfeiture to take the house of a 71-year-old grandmother who owned and resided in a property in West Philadelphia. She had owned the house since the 1970s, and in 2006, her health began to deteriorate. Her adult son and two grandchildren moved into the house, and her adult son began selling relatively small amounts of marijuana. On a number of occasions, her son sold marijuana to police officers or confidential informants. He also used her Chevrolet Minivan to meet with buyers during some of these drug transactions. On at least one occasion, police warned Ms. Young that her son was selling marijuana, but the marijuana sales apparently continued.

Eventually, Ms. Young’s son was convicted of Possession with the Intent to Deliver marijuana and sentenced to a short county jail sentence. Ms. Young was never charged with a crime, but the District Attorney’s Office filed a petition for forfeiture of her house and vehicle under the Controlled Substances Forfeiture Act. Although the Commonwealth never charged her with a crime, prosecutors sought to put a 71-year-old grandmother out on the street due to the fact that she was unable to prevent her adult son from selling small amounts of marijuana.

The trial court, finding that Ms. Young had not done enough to stop her son from selling marijuana, ordered the house and car forfeited to the Commonwealth. The trial court found a nexus between the marijuana sales and the home and vehicle in that both the house and the car were used to store and sell marijuana. Under Pennsylvania law, there is an “innocent owner” defense to civil forfeiture in that a defendant may retain the property if the defendant can show that he or she did not know about the illegal activity or did not consent to it. However, the court found that the innocent owner exception did not apply because police had warned Young of the sales and she had not done anything to stop her adult son from selling marijuana after that date. In other words, she was unable to convince her son to stop, and she was also not willing or able to throw him out of the house. The trial court further found that that the forfeiture did not constitute an excessive fine because the maximum financial penalty for the drug crimes would have been $80,000, and that amount exceeded the value of the home and automobile.

Increased Protections in Civil Forfeiture Cases

On appeal, the Commonwealth Court reversed the trial court’s ruling, and last week, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court upheld the decision of the Commonwealth Court. The Court traced the history of both civil and criminal forfeiture and the Excessive Fines Clause of the Eighth Amendment and ultimately concluded that the trial court erred in ordering that the property be forfeited. The Court found that a trial court must consider two issues in a challenge to a civil forfeiture under the Excessive Fines Clause.

“Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.”

— The Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution

First, the trial court must determine whether the property sought to be forfeited is an instrumentality of the underlying criminal offense. If the property is not an instrumentality, then the forfeiture is unconstitutional and the property may not be forfeited. If the trial court finds that the property is in fact an instrumentality, then the court must still determine whether the value of the property sought to be forfeited is grossly disproportional to the gravity of the underlying offense.

In making the decision on the threshold instrumentality issue, the court should consider at least the following factors: 

(1) whether the property was uniquely important to the success of the illegal activity;

(2) whether the use of the property was deliberate and planned or was merely incidental and fortuitous to the illegal enterprise;

(3) whether the illegal use of the property was an isolated event or repeated;

(4) whether the purpose of acquiring, maintaining or using the property was to carry out the offense;

(5) whether the illegal use of the property was extensive spatially and/or temporally; and

(6) whether the property is divisible with respect to the subject of forfeiture, allowing forfeiture of only that discrete property which has a significant relationship to the underlying offense.

If the property is an instrumentality of the crime, the court must weigh the value of the property against the gravity of the offense. In evaluating value, the court must consider the following factors: 

(1) the fair market value of the property;

(2) the subjective value of the property taking into account whether the property is a family residence or if the property is essential to the owner’s livelihood;

(3) the harm forfeiture would bring to the owner or innocent third parties; and

(4) whether the forfeiture would deprive the property owner of his or her livelihood.

Once the court has determined the value of the property, the court must then weigh the value of the property under the above four factors against the gravity of the offense, considering factors such as:

(1) the nature of the underlying offense;

(2) the relation of the violation of the offense to any other illegal activity and whether the offender fit into the class of persons for whom the offense was designed should be considered;

(3) the maximum authorized penalty as compared to the actual penalty imposed upon the criminal offender;

(4) the regularity of the criminal conduct — whether the illegal acts were isolated or frequent, constituting a pattern of misbehavior;

(5) the actual harm resulting from the crime charged, beyond a generalized harm to society; and

(6) the culpability of the property owner.

Clearly, the court must now consider a large number of factors when making a civil forfeiture decision, and the majority of the factors are going to weigh against taking a 71-year-old grandmother’s home due to a limited number of marijuana sales by a non-owner of the property. Thus, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court remanded the case to the trial court to reconsider its findings in light of the new guidance provided by the decision. Additionally, the Supreme Court rejected the trial court’s relatively cursory analysis of the issue under the innocent owner defense. The Court noted that the innocent owner defense can be shown through two ways: either a lack of knowledge or lack of consent. Thus, simply having knowledge of illegal activity may not be enough. If the defendant ordered her son to stop selling drugs and believed he had done so, then that may have been enough to show a lack of consent even if she did originally have knowledge.

Goldstein Mehta LLC Criminal Defense Lawyers

Award-Winning Philadelphia Criminal Defense Lawyers for Forfeiture Cases

The Court’s ruling greatly strengthens the protections for people who are facing civil forfeiture actions but have not been found guilty of any criminal wrongdoing themselves. It also should not really limit the Commonwealth’s ability to take property which his truly being used for criminal activity. In the case of a house which has really become a drug house, or property which has been used to commit a crime, then prosecutors should still be able to show that the factors weigh in favor of forfeiture. But in cases like Young, the Commonwealth will have a much more difficult time putting grandmothers out on the street because they have difficulty stopping adult children from selling marijuana.

As always, if you are facing criminal charges, under investigation, or dealing with a forfeiture action, you should speak with one of our Philadelphia criminal defense lawyers today. We can help with state and federal charges in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Call 267-225-2545 for a free criminal defense strategy session with an award-winning defense attorney.