Georgia rapper asks appeals court to award legal fees in airport cash seizure suit

ATLANTA (CN) — An aspiring Georgia rapper who successfully fought off the federal government’s attempt to keep thousands of dollars in cash seized from his luggage at the Atlanta airport asked a federal appeals court on Tuesday to give him another shot at forcing the government to pay his legal fees.

Brian Moore Jr. was passing through the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport in 2021 on his way to Los Angeles to shoot a music video when three Drug Enforcement Administration agents stopped him at his gate. They searched Moore’s bags and seized $8,500 in cash, claiming it was connected to drug crimes.

The musician was never arrested nor charged with a crime.

The agents seized the money using civil asset forfeiture, a legal process that allows law enforcement to confiscate cash and property if they suspect criminal activity. Moore says the search of his bag was illegal and the money came from selling his late grandfather’s car.

Moore’s attorney argued to an 11th Circuit panel Tuesday that a federal judge unfairly rejected his client’s request last year for $15,200 in attorney fees and costs that accumulated while he defended his property in court.

U.S. District Judge Thomas Thrash Jr. denied Moore’s motion for attorneys' fees after the government abruptly reversed course a year into the litigation and asked to dismiss the case with prejudice.

“This court and the district court should not give the government a get-out-of-fees free card when the government decided they don’t want to spend the time litigating against a claimant who decides to fight back,” Dan Alban, an Institute for Justice attorney representing Moore, told the three-judge panel.

The government said it was no longer in the public interest to pursue the case. The decision came about “for purely practical reasons to conserve judicial resources," Assistant U.S. Attorney Sekret Sneed said.

Moore's money was returned to him last March, about two years after it was seized.

Thrash found Moore was not entitled to attorney fees under the Civil Asset Forfeiture Reform Act, which says the government will be liable for a claimant’s reasonable attorney fees and other litigation costs only if the claimant “substantially prevails.”

“Although Moore ultimately achieved his goal of entitlement to the disputed currency, it came to fruition through the United States’ voluntary change of course,” the judge ruled.

Alban asked the panel to overturn Thrash’s decision, arguing that his client qualified for fees under the Act’s mandatory fee shifting provision, which was designed to “make claimants whole” for their efforts to recover their property.

“[Moore] didn’t just substantially prevail, he completely prevailed,” Alban said.

Questions posed by the panel of judges suggested that a decision in the appeal hinges on whether the government’s move to voluntarily dismiss the case changed the legal relationship between the parties.

Thrash ruled there was no material change in the parties’ relationship because the case never reached the stage where the merits of Moore’s claim were addressed.

U.S. Circuit Judge Charles Wilson candidly admitted his partial disagreement with Thrash, saying there was “clearly” a change in the relationship. But the Clinton appointee questioned whether the reason for the government’s motion — to decrease costs, not to avoid an unfavorable ruling — might weigh in the government’s favor.

Alban told the panel the ruling was an “exercise of judicial discretion” that ordered the return of his client’s money and immunized his client against further forfeiture — two legal remedies to which Moore was not previously entitled, and which transformed the legal relationship.

“When [a court] dismisses the case with prejudice, that is a judicially sanctioned material alteration of the relationship between the parties,” Alban said.

Sneed insisted there was no change, telling the panel there “must be something more than voluntary conduct by the government that creates this change of the relationship" like an "adjudication on the merits or a court-ordered settlement."

U.S. Circuit Judge Robin Rosenbaum seemed surprised at the argument, asking, “The owner of the property, Mr. Moore, has the $8,500 and there’s no way you can take it back because you’ve dismissed with prejudice. Why isn’t that a judicially sanctioned change in the nature of the relationship?”

“It seems like maybe the district court was wrong,” the Obama appointee added.

The panel also appeared to bristle at Sneed’s argument that the lack of a legal determination as to Moore’s innocence should factor into the attorneys' fees decision.

“The reason we don’t know for certain whether he’s an innocent owner is because the government dismissed its case with prejudice,” Rosenbaum pointed out. “He put a lot of legal effort into the case to show that he was an innocent owner.”

The three-judge panel was rounded out by U.S. Circuit Judge Nancy Abudu, a Joe Biden appointee. The judges did not indicate when they will issue a ruling in the case.

Follow @KaylaGoggin_CNS

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