[Kid Shelleen]

This article gives some more details on the legal rational behind the decision.

The Langbords sued in 2006, claiming in part that the government failed to follow procedures set up in a 2000 law concerning property seized by the U.S. government.

In 2011, a federal jury in Philadelphia sided with the government, allowing the Mint to keep the coins. The government had argued that the coins were products of a crime—either stolen or otherwise concealed after they left the Mint illegally. A judge upheld the verdict in 2012.

But the appeals court overturned the lower court, ruling that the government missed a 90-day filing deadline set up under the Civil Asset Forfeiture Reform Act of 2000.



Court Orders U.S. Mint to Return Famed Coins to Family

[Sasparilla]

The coins were returned because the government failed to follow legal procedures?
The government busted for not following the law?
That must not apply to the Oval Office.

[ifinnegan]

Thanks for this. It clarifies things.

[CommerceComet]

In 2011, a federal jury in Philadelphia sided with the government, allowing the Mint to keep the coins. The government had argued that the coins were products of a crime—either stolen or otherwise concealed after they left the Mint illegally. A judge upheld the verdict in 2012. But the appeals court overturned the lower court, ruling that the government missed a 90-day filing deadline set up under the Civil Asset Forfeiture Reform Act of 2000.

A question for the attorneys out there. Doesn't the first ruling establish that the U. S. Mint is the rightful owner of the coins? Did the appeal overturn this adjudicated fact?

The second ruling seems to be a technical ruling which bars the government from using the Civil Assets Forfeiture Reform Act as a basis for the return of the coins. That wouldn't bar the use of the other statutes to force the return of the coins. Right? Alternatively, couldn't the federal government just wait until the coins were sold to another party, then sue the other party under CAFRA (this time doing the paperwork right)? I would think that an investor would think long and hard before buying the coins with such a clouded title - at a minimum, it looks like years of litigation with a real possibility of seizure.

I'm not as sympathetic to these people as I was to those who found the coins in California. It looks like these people had possession of $80 million of coins that didn't belong to them. In the former case, the previous ownership of the coins couldn't be established, here it sounds like it was.