The Supreme Court voted 6–3 on May 9 to uphold the legal process used to forfeit two Alabama women’s cars that were used to commit drug offenses, finding that the U.S. Constitution does not require a separate hearing to determine whether the police may retain the car before the forfeiture hearing.
The three liberal justices dissented, saying the majority’s ruling prevents lower courts from “addressing myriad abuses of the civil forfeiture system.”
The case involves civil asset forfeiture (CAF), which has long been criticized by civil libertarians. Civil asset forfeiture laws are ripe for abuse and provide undue incentives to governments to seize private property, critics say.
CAF is a legal procedure in which law enforcement officials take assets from people suspected of criminal or illegal activity without necessarily charging the owners with wrongdoing. Often, the owners are required to prove that the asset was not involved in criminal or illegal activity. Failing that, the government keeps the property.
Co-petitioner Halima Tariffa Culley’s automobile was seized by the city of Satsuma, Alabama, in 2019 when her college-age son was arrested while using it. The police found marijuana and a loaded handgun in the car. The son was arrested, and the car was seized.
She filed a federal class-action lawsuit in federal district court claiming that the city and the state violated her 14th Amendment rights by failing to provide her with a prompt post-deprivation hearing.
Such a hearing, she argued, should have determined whether the vehicle should be retained by the state pending the disposition of the case against her son and whether continued impoundment of the car was “the least restrictive way for the State to secure its interest in the vehicle during the pendency of the Civil Asset Forfeiture ... proceeding filed against her.”
The city referred the matter to the state, which made Ms. Culley a defendant in a case it brought under Alabama’s CAF statute. Ms. Culley moved for summary judgment, and the state court granted it, ordering the car be returned to her because she was deemed an innocent owner of the vehicle who was not subject to forfeiture under state law.
Co-petitioner Lena Sutton lent her automobile to a friend in 2019. It was pulled over by police, who discovered a large quantity of methamphetamine in it. The friend was arrested and charged with drug trafficking and possessing drug paraphernalia. The car was seized by police.
Ms. Sutton filed a federal class-action lawsuit against the town of Leesburg, Alabama, claiming she had been improperly deprived of her car and, like Ms. Culley, was not given a prompt post-deprivation hearing at which the state would have to show probable cause. Before that, Ms. Sutton won her case in state court and showed she was an innocent owner who did not participate in or have knowledge of the use of the vehicle in a crime.
Ms. Sutton asked the federal district court to grant summary judgment to her, but it refused. Ms. Sutton appealed, and her case was consolidated with Ms. Culley’s. In July 2022, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit ruled against the two women.
The petitioners asked the Supreme Court to grant their petition because the various circuit courts do not agree “on the controlling issue of federal law” and because the Supreme Court previously agreed to hear a similar case. The Supreme Court was unable to resolve that case because of a jurisdiction-related problem, according to the petition filed with the Supreme Court.
In his opinion, Justice Kavanaugh confirmed that when police seize and then apply for civil forfeiture of a vehicle that was used in the commission of a drug offense, the Constitution requires that a forfeiture hearing take place on a timely basis.
But the Constitution does not require that a separate preliminary hearing be conducted to determine whether the police may hold onto the car pending the forfeiture hearing, he wrote. Different jurisdictions have chosen different means of administering forfeiture laws, he said, and this is permissible under the Constitution.
When the two cars were seized, Alabama law allowed the civil forfeiture of a vehicle used to commit or facilitate a drug crime. The Alabama Code provided that police could seize the car “incident to an arrest” as long as the state then “promptly” initiated a forfeiture proceeding. Before the forfeiture hearing, the owner could regain possession of the car by posting bond at double the car’s value.
At the forfeiture hearing itself, the owner could recover the vehicle under the state’s “affirmative defense” for “innocent owners of property subject to forfeiture.” Such a defense required that the owner demonstrate he or she did not know about the car’s connection to the drug crime.
The state initiated a forfeiture complaint against Ms. Culley’s car on Feb. 27, 2019, 10 days after seizing it. But Ms. Culley waited six months before filing a response to that complaint and held on for another year until Sept. 21, 2020, before bringing up an innocent owner defense in a motion to the court. On Oct. 30, 2020, a state court ordered the car be returned to Ms. Culley.
Ms. Sutton also moved slowly in her forfeiture proceeding, Justice Kavanaugh wrote.
The state filed for forfeiture on March 6, 2019, which was 13 days after the car was seized. Ms. Sutton missed a court date, and the state court entered a default judgment for Alabama. At Ms. Sutton’s request, the state court set aside the judgment. She filed an answer and served discovery requests on the state but didn’t do anything else until the state court set a date for the forfeiture trial. She moved for summary judgment as an innocent owner, and on May 28, 2020, the state court approved her motion, allowing her to recover her car.
While the forfeiture process was moving forward, the two women filed purported class action lawsuits in federal court.
Both asked for monetary damages under federal civil rights law 42 U.S.C. Section 1983, arguing that state officials violated their due process rights by keeping their cars before holding a preliminary hearing. Federal courts in Alabama ruled against the women, and the 11th Circuit consolidated the two cases and affirmed.
Justice Kavanaugh wrote that the Supreme Court recognizes that under the due process clause of the 14th Amendment, states may not ordinarily seize real property before providing notice and a hearing, but states may immediately seize personal property such as a car and put it through the civil asset forfeiture process.
When states seek civil forfeiture of personal property, due process demands a timely post-seizure forfeiture hearing, but in this case, the petitioners did not challenge the timeliness of their hearings. Instead, they argued that the due process clause requires the state to also conduct a separate preliminary hearing before the forfeiture hearing to focus on the validity of the forfeiture.
However, after a state seizes and seeks civil forfeiture of personal property, “due process requires a timely forfeiture hearing but does not require a separate preliminary hearing,” the justice wrote.
The Supreme Court affirmed the judgment rendered by the 11th Circuit.
Justice Sotomayor dissented.
After seizing a car that is suspected of being connected to a crime committed by someone else, the police department “can then keep the car for months or even years until the State ultimately seeks ownership of it through civil forfeiture,” she wrote.
In most states, the money raised from selling the car goes into the police department’s budget. The petitioners argued that the due process clause requires a speedy opportunity after seizure for an innocent car owner to argue in court why he or she should maintain possession of his or her car pending the final forfeiture determination, she wrote.
“When an officer has a financial incentive to hold onto a car and an owner pleads innocence, they argue, a retention hearing at least ensures that the officer has probable cause to connect the owner and the car to a crime,” Justice Sotomayor wrote.
“Today, the Court holds that the Due Process Clause never requires that minimal safeguard. In doing so, it sweeps far more broadly than the narrow question presented and hamstrings lower courts from addressing myriad abuses of the civil forfeiture system.”
Small businesses had been hopeful that the Supreme Court would determine that innocent small business owners were entitled to a prompt post-deprivation hearing, but now many small businesses will be subjected to “a lengthy and costly forfeiture process,” the group said in a statement.
“When it comes to civil asset forfeiture, small business owners who rent, sell, or conduct cash transactions are particularly vulnerable to harm,” Beth Milito, executive director of the group’s Small Business Legal Center, said.
“Because of this decision, many small business property owners will continue to be targeted and injured by a civil asset forfeiture procedure that violates due process and punishes businesses for the actions of the public.”
