## Facts

- Billy Ray Shivers used a metal detector at the former Aldridge Lumber Company mill town site within the Angelina National Forest, which is federal land.
- Shivers unearthed approximately 50–70 metal tokens that had been used as worker payment decades earlier (about 50–100 years old).
- Federal agents obtained a warrant and seized the tokens and other items, believing ARPA might have been violated.
- The government declined to prosecute and returned other seized items but kept the tokens.
- Shivers moved for return of the tokens under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 41(e) (now Rule 41(g)).
- The district court denied the motion, concluding Shivers did not own the tokens under ARPA or the common law of finds; Shivers appealed, conceding the district court’s factual findings.

## Issues

1. Whether 16 U.S.C. § 470kk(b) grants a private collector ownership of “coins” that are less than 100 years old and therefore not “archaeological resources” under ARPA.
2. Whether, apart from ARPA, federal common-law property doctrines (including the embedded property rule) give title to buried tokens on federal land to the finder rather than the United States as landowner.

## Decision

- The Fifth Circuit affirmed the denial of Shivers’s Rule 41(e) motion.
- The court held that § 470kk(b) is a limited exception from ARPA’s permit/penalty scheme and does not convey title to items collected on federal land.
- The court held that the tokens, excavated from the soil on federal land, were embedded property owned by the United States as landowner.

## Legal Principles

- ARPA’s exception for private collection of certain items that are not “archaeological resources” (16 U.S.C. § 470kk(b)) removes those items from ARPA’s permitting requirements but does not transfer ownership to a finder.
- ARPA’s definition of “archaeological resource” requires an item to be at least 100 years old; an item’s exclusion from that definition does not resolve title.
- Under federal common law, abandoned property may vest in a finder, but objects embedded in the soil belong to the owner of the land where they are found.
- A statutory provision that limits penalties or regulatory requirements does not, without clear language, divest the United States of property interests in objects located on federal land.

## Conclusion

The court ruled that Shivers could not compel return of the tokens because ARPA’s non-archaeological collection exception does not grant ownership, and the embedded property doctrine vests title to buried objects found on federal land in the United States.


United States v. Shivers, 96 F.3d 120 (5th Cir. 1996)