by Sharon Cohen Levin, Daniel P. Kearney, Jr., Sarah Mortazavi, and Anuradha Sivaram

On June 5, 2017, the Supreme Court issued a unanimous opinion in Honeycutt v. United States (PDF: 99 KB) (No. 16-142), holding that a criminal defendant can be held liable to forfeit only crime proceeds the defendant personally obtained, and cannot be made jointly and severally liable for proceeds acquired by a co-conspirator. The decision upends decades of nearly uniform precedent from the federal courts of appeals,[1] and will likely have wide-ranging effects on the government’s ability to obtain criminal forfeiture. While Honeycutt is a narcotics case, the procedures in the forfeiture statute in question apply to all criminal forfeitures, including criminal forfeiture in cases involving securities fraud, healthcare fraud, corruption, insider trading, economic sanctions, mail fraud and wire fraud.  Continue reading →