DPS Legal Review

Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals

CLAIMANT IN CIVIL FORFEITURE CASE ENTITLED TO ATTORNEYS FEES

In late March 2021, Moore, who planned to travel by airplane, was at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. While in a waiting area, Moore was stopped by agents with the Drug Enforcement Agency (“DEA”). The DEA agents claimed to have observed “what they believed to be suspicious behavior.” Based on these observations,

The agents questioned Moore at length and eventually obtained Moore’s consent to search his bag, which contained $8,500 in cash (the “Currency”). The agents confiscated the Currency and placed it in an envelope, but they allowed Moore to board his flight. The agents then had a DEA narcotics detection dog sniff the envelope, and the canine alerted the agents of the possible presence of narcotics. A DEA field office held onto the Currency before turning it over to the United States Marshals Service.

Approximately three months later, “Moore filed a claim with the DEA, asserting that he was the rightful owner of the Currency.” The United States government (“government”) responded by filing a complaint for forfeiture of the seized Currency, arguing that “the Currency was used or intended to be used in conjunction with illegal drug activity.”

One of the federal statutes upon which the government relied provides:

The following [property] shall be subject to forfeiture to the United States and no property right shall exist in them: All moneys, negotiable instruments, securities, or other things of value furnished or intended to be furnished by any person in exchange for a controlled substance or listed chemical in violation of this subchapter, all proceeds traceable to such an exchange, and all moneys, negotiable instruments, and securities used or intended to be used to facilitate any violation of this subchapter.
(21 U.S.C. § 881(a)(6))

Moore filed a motion in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia (“District Court”), seeking to suppress “admission of the Currency and any statements he made as evidence, maintaining that the DEA agents lacked reasonable suspicion or probable cause to stop and detain him at the airport.” Moore contended that his Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable searches and seizures was violated by the agents’ stopping him; questioning him; searching his bag; and seizing the Currency from his bag.

Moore later moved for summary judgment under Rule 56 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Rule 56 states, in part:

A party may move for summary judgment, identifying each claim or defense—or the part of each claim or defense—on which summary judgment is sought. The court shall grant summary judgment if the movant shows that there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. The court should state on the record the reasons for granting or denying the motion.

Less than a week after Moore’s summary judgment filing, the government “moved to voluntarily dismiss the complaint with prejudice.”* The government explained that “after reviewing the evidence produced during discovery, it had ‘become convinced that it [was] not in the public interest to pursue [the] case.’”
(*Black’s Law Dictionary defines “dismissal with prejudice” as “[a] dismissal, usually after an adjudication on the merits, barring the plaintiff from prosecuting any later lawsuit on the same claim.”)

In response to the government’s filing, “Moore filed a qualified objection to the government’s motion, stating he did not oppose the dismissal, but that the government’s proposed order should also include language that he had ‘substantially prevailed’ under [federal law].” The District Court determined

that dismissal was proper because it would save judicial resources, would allow Moore to avoid any subsequent litigation, would save Moore from incurring additional attorney’s fees and costs, and the government would return his money. Thus, he would suffer no prejudice. The court, however, did not rule on whether Moore had substantially prevailed in the litigation.

After the District Court dismissed the case,

Moore moved for attorney’s fees, costs, and pre- and post-judgment interest on the Currency confiscated under the Civil Asset Forfeiture Reform Act (CAFRA), 28 U.S.C. § 2465(b)(1)(A). In his motion, Moore identified around $15,000 in attorney’s fees he had incurred during the discovery process and the filing of his motions to suppress and for summary judgment. He argued that he was entitled to attorney’s fees because he had “substantially prevail[ed]” under section 2465(b)(1) and that the district court also had the discretion to award him attorney’s fees pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 41(a)(2).

The District Court found “that Moore was not statutorily entitled to attorney’s fees, and it declined to exercise its discretion to award fees.” One of the bases upon which the District Court reached its decision was that “it had never addressed the merits of Moore’s defenses in the forfeiture case and the government’s ‘voluntary change in conduct’ was not tantamount to a ‘judgment on the merits’ which might have entitled him to fees.”

In reaching its decision not to award attorney’s fees to Moore, the District Court looked to a 2001 United States Supreme Court decision (the Buckhannon case). In Buckhannon, the Supreme Court reasoned that awarding attorney’s fees to a party is only warranted “when there is (1) a material alteration of the legal relationship of the parties, and (2) a judicial imprimatur on the change.” (Black’s Law Dictionary defines “imprimatur” as “[a] general grant of approval; commendatory license or sanction, esp. by an important person.”)

The District Court found that “the government’s motion for voluntary dismissal with prejudice was a ‘voluntary change in conduct’”, thereby satisfying the first prong of the Buckhannon test. However, the District Court ruled that this voluntary change “lacked ‘the necessary judicial imprimatur on the change.’”
Subsequently, the government returned the Currency to Moore, who appealed the District Court’s ruling to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals (“11th Circuit” or “Court”).

Unlike the District Court, the Court of Appeals determined that both prongs of the Buckhannon test had been satisfied: “Moore substantially prevailed in the proceeding because there was a material alteration in the legal relationship between the parties and a sufficient judicial imprimatur on that change.” The Court wrote:

First, the government sought to materially alter the parties’ legal relationship through a forfeiture action by permanently confiscating the Currency from Moore. However, the government, after a year of litigation, decided to abandon the forfeiture action and returned the Currency to Moore after the district court dismissed the action.

As to the second Buckhannon prong (i.e., a judicial imprimatur on the change), the Court wrote: “[T]he facts here present the necessary judicial imprimatur of that change. The district court explicitly approved the dismissal by granting the government’s motion under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 41(a)(2) as opposed to permitting a voluntary dismissal without a court order under Rule 41(a)(1)(A).”

Therefore, the Court of Appeals explained, “Moore substantially prevailed here and is entitled to attorney’s fees under 28 U.S.C. § 2465(b)(1)(A).”
U.S. v. $8,500 in United States Currency, No. 23-10971, 2025 WL 2406318 (11th Cir., Aug. 20, 2025).

OFFICER DID NOT UNLAWFULLY PROLONG TRAFFIC STOP

Defendant Piett was convicted in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Georgia (“District Court”) of possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. On appeal to the 11th Circuit, Piett challenged: (1) the District Court’s denial of his motion to suppress; (2) his 300-month sentence; and (3) “his status as an armed career criminal and a career offender.” This summary focuses on Piett’s appeal of the District Court’s ruling on his motion to suppress.

Piett argued on appeal

that the District Court erred in denying his motion to suppress evidence because the officer who stopped him unlawfully extended the traffic stop, and the officer lacked reasonable suspicion and probable cause to search his vehicle. Specifically, Piett claim[ed] that the traffic stop continued for an additional one minute and 26 seconds after the officer’s questioning Piett before the narcotics dog and handler arrived at the scene.

In response, the government argued that the mission of the traffic stop, i.e., citing Piett for driving with a suspended license, had not yet been completed “at the time the narcotics dog alerted to the driver’s door for the presence of drugs[.]” Therefore, the government contended, the traffic stop was not prolonged by the “dog sniff” and “the officers did not have to establish reasonable suspicion prior to pursuing matters unrelated to the mission of the traffic stop.”
Relevant United States Supreme Court precedent provides that “[o]nce an officer makes a traffic stop, he does not have unfettered authority to detain a person indefinitely, and instead, the detention is limited in scope and duration.” Supreme Court of the stop is ‘determined by the seizure’s mission—to address the traffic violation that warranted the stop and attend to related safety concerns.’”

Regarding its decision to affirm the District Court’s denial of Piett’s motion to suppress, the 11th Circuit wrote:

The record demonstrates that the district court did not err in denying Piett’s motion to suppress. The officer did not unlawfully prolong the traffic stop by inquiring about unrelated matters as the traffic stop’s mission was ongoing and the inquiry did not add any time to the traffic stop. Furthermore, the officer had probable cause to search Piett’s vehicle after a narcotics dog positively alerted to the presence of contraband at the driver’s door of his vehicle.
State v. Piett, No. 23-13197, 2025 WL 2156749, (11th Cir., July 30, 2025).