92
Opinion of the Court
in the Treasury during the course of an ongoing in rem forfeiture proceeding—the purpose of which, after all, is to determine the ownership of the res, see, e. g., The Propeller Commerce, 1 Black 574, 580-581 (1862); The Maggie Hammond, 9 Wall. 435, 456 (1870); Jennings v. Carson, 4 Cranch 2, 23 (1807)—can properly be considered public money. The Court in Tyler v. Defrees, 11 Wall. 331, 349 (1871), explained that once a valid seizure of forfeitable property has occurred and the court has notice of the fact, "[n]o change of the title or possession [can] be made, pending the judicial proceedings, which would defeat the final decree."
Contrary to the Government's broad submission here, the Comptroller General long has assumed that, in certain situations, an erroneous deposit of funds into a Treasury account can be corrected without a specific appropriation. See 53 Comp. Gen. 580 (1974); 45 Comp. Gen. 724 (1966); 3 Comp. Gen. 762 (1924); 12 Comp. Dec. 733, 735 (1906); Principles of Federal Appropriations Law, at 5-79 to 5-81. Most of these cases have arisen where money intended for one account was accidentally deposited in another. It would be unrealistic, for example, to require congressional authorization before a data processor who misplaces a decimal point can "undo" an inaccurate transfer of Treasury funds. The Government's absolutist view of the scope of the Appropriations Clause is inconsistent with these commonsense understandings.
I would hold that the Constitution does not forbid the return without an appropriation of funds held in the Treasury during the course of an in rem forfeiture proceeding to the party determined to be their owner. Because the funds therefore could be disgorged if petitioner is adjudged to be their rightful owner, a judgment in petitioner's favor would not be "useless."
IV
In a civil forfeiture proceeding, where the Government has the power to confiscate private property on a showing of mere probable cause, the right to appeal is a crucial safe-
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