CA1: DEA screwed up a forfeiture, and the First doesn’t publish

Rodriquez v. US Drug Enforcement Administration, 06-1795, 06-1832 (unpublished).  This is a lawsuit “alleging that an administrative forfeiture of $ 1905.00 violated due process because he had contested the forfeiture, and he received no notices in the administrative proceeding after an initial notice of seizure.”  For some reason the District Court dismissed for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, seeming to accept the DEA’s misconstrued his petition to “seeking only mitigation or remission.”  Apparently, he didn’t use the word “claim.”  The plaintiff says, obviously, that he wouldn’t have filed it under oath if he wasn’t contesting that the monies were legally obtained.  The First responds (with a long strightcite) that “A clear misconstrual of his petition states a due process claim within the district court's subject matter jurisdiction.”  Secondly, the plaintiff claims that he received no notice of the ongoing proceedings, so he couldn’t correct what DEA said.  Alas, they sent him the mail while he was in jail, the First says that the government needs to show actual service, and whatever the case the question of service if a fact-inquiry. 

Now, this annoys me.  This is some very good law for prisoners, and good advice for the government.  In fact, the plaintiff was pro se.  Why in god’s green earth is it unpublished?  The court concludes with a warning to prisons:

Finally, concerning MCI-Concord, we warn: "if the government knew that mail delivery in a particular prison was unreliable but sent the notice by this means without any other precaution, mail delivery would not satisfy due process."

Hopefully someone will get this prisoner to file a motion to publish.