Switt may have obtained the stolen 1933 double eagles through a relationship with the head mint cashier. One theory is that McCann swapped previous year double eagles for the 1933 specimens prior to melting, thus avoiding compromise of accounting books and inventory lists. Coin experts in the numismatic world have advanced an argument that Switt could have legally obtained the 1933 coins when he was exchanging gold bullion for coins. Although the Mint records clearly show that no 1933 double eagles were issued, there were allegedly three weeks in March 1933 when new double eagles could possibly have been legally obtained. The mint began striking double eagles on March 15, and Roosevelt's executive order to ban them was not finalized until April 5. On March 6, 1933, the Secretary of the Treasury ordered the Director of the Mint to pay gold only under license issued by the Secretary, and the United States Mint cashier's daily statements do not reflect that any 1933 double eagles were paid out. Until the early 1970s (when President Nixon took the United States off of the gold standard and President Ford signed legislation that again made it legal for the public to own gold bullion), any recovered 1933 double eagle, as gold bullion, was required to be melted. Therefore, while double eagles recovered prior to 1974 were melted down, any double eagle recovered now can be spared this fate. Currently, with the exception of the one sold on July 30, 2002, 1933 double eagle coins cannot be the legal possession of any member of the public, as they were never issued and hence remain the property of the United States government. On October 28, 2010, United States District Court judge Legrome D. Davis released a 20-page decision regarding claims to the coins by descendants of Israel Switt, leading to a trial in July 2011. On July 20, 2011, after a ten-day trial, a jury ruled unanimously in favor of the United States government concerning ownership of the ten additional double eagles. The court concluded that circumstantial evidence proved that Israel Switt had illegally obtained the coins from the United States government, and that they are thus still government property. The decision was affirmed on August 29, 2012, and the plaintiffs planned to appeal. In 2003, the ten double eagles were stored at the Fort Knox Bullion Depository. They were shown to jurors in Philadelphia during the July 2011 trial, and were then returned to Fort Knox, where they were to remain until a decision was made regarding their disposition. In April 2015, a United States federal appeals court ordered the coins returned to the Langbord family because the original asset seizure was conducted improperly, as the government failed to file a judicial civil forfeiture complaint within 90 days of the family's seized asset claim.