WASHINGTON (CN) — The Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that car owners who have a vehicle seized are not entitled to quick post-deprivation hearings to get their property back faster.
The court split along ideological lines, with the conservative majority saying the ruling balanced the interests of the government and individuals facing forfeiture. Justice Brett Kavanaugh, a Donald Trump appointee, said when police seize a car used in a drug crime, the Constitution already requires a timely hearing.
“The question here is whether the Constitution also requires a separate preliminary hearing to determine whether the police may retain the car pending the forfeiture hearing,” Kavanaugh wrote for the majority. “This court’s precedents establish that the answer is no: The Constitution requires a timely forfeiture hearing; the Constitution does not also require a separate preliminary hearing.”
Kavanaugh said adding an additional preliminary hearing requirement would interfere with law enforcement activities.
The three liberal justices dissented from the ruling. Justice Sonia Sotomayor, a Barack Obama appointee, said the ruling ignored the Constitution’s minimal safeguards against property seizures.
“The majority today holds that due process never requires the minimal check of a retention hearing before a police officer deprives an innocent owner of her car for months or years,” Sotomayor wrote for the dissenters.
Sotomayor said civil forfeitures sit in a murky space between criminal forfeiture and ordinary government deprivations of property. Outside of criminal cases, Sotomayor said, the government is usually required to provide a hearing before seizing personal property. But civil forfeitures are a hybrid, where law enforcement believes the property is connected to a crime even though the owner is not.
The rules around civil forfeitures vary among the federal government, states and localities, which Sotomayor said makes them ripe for abuse.
“In 32 states and the federal system, when law enforcement agencies forfeit property, the proceeds go to their own budgets,” Sotomayor wrote. “As a result, police agencies often have a financial incentive to seize as many cars as possible and try to retain them.”
Halima Culley had her car seized by the city of Satsuma, Alabama, after her son was arrested on possession of marijuana and drug paraphernalia charges. Culley had to wait almost two years for a hearing to get her vehicle back.
Alabama filed a civil asset forfeiture in an attempt to seize Culley’s car permanently, but the state court ruled in Culley’s favor under the state’s innocent-owner defense.
Culley was joined by Lena Sutton — another “innocent owner” whose car was seized for over a year — to file a class action claiming Alabama took their property unlawfully.
Two lower courts shot down their suits but the Supreme Court agreed to review the matter.
Culley and Sutton told the justices that the courts had applied the wrong test, using the court’s ruling in Barker v. Wingo when Mathews v. Eldridge was the better fit. Barker determined when delays deprive criminal defendants of their constitutional rights, whereas Mathews determined whether the cities’ continued impoundment of the cars violates due process.
Shay Dvoretzky, an attorney with Skadden, Arps, Slate representing Culley, told the court it only had to issue a narrow ruling during oral arguments in October. He claimed Mathews was about protecting due process instead of micromanaging courts.
Kavanaugh said the court didn't need to reweigh the cases presented by Culley and Sutton because two rulings from the 1980s — United States v. $8,850 and United States v. Von Neumann — already resolved the issue. Kavanaugh said Von Neumann established that a timely forfeiture hearing satisfied any due process right involving a car seized through civil forfeiture.
Kavanaugh said Culley was asking for a “back door” to receive a more timely hearing than already required by the court’s precedents. He said historical practice confirmed those rulings, citing government seizures of personal property without a separate preliminary hearing requirement during the founding era.
“The absence of separate preliminary hearings in civil forfeiture proceedings — from the founding until the late 20th century — is weighty evidence that due process does not require such hearings,” Kavanaugh wrote.
The liberal justices said the majority took a narrow question and created a broad ruling that would hamstring the lower courts.
"Given the diverse schemes adopted by states, some with adequate safeguards and some without, the court should have just answered the question presented," Sotomayor wrote. "Instead, it announces a universal rule for all schemes without heeding the dictates of this court’s due process precedents that require a scheme-specific analysis."
Sotomayor said police officers can be incentivized to target low-level drug possession in cars rather than drug sales on the street because of the potential to seize a vehicle. She cited a brief before the court where Detroit car owners accused Wayne County of seizing and holding vehicles, forcing owners to pay steep fees to get their vehicles back.
“In short, law enforcement can seize cars, hold them indefinitely, and then rely on an owner’s lack of resources to forfeit those cars to fund agency budgets, all without any initial check by a judge as to whether there is a basis to hold the car in the first place,” Sotomayor wrote.
Justice Neil Gorsuch, a Donald Trump appointee, said he agreed with both the majority and dissent. He said the ruling didn’t give any greater weight to government interests — which he disagreed with. Gorsuch said the case left open bigger questions about government authority to seize property that the court should answer in another case.
“In this nation, the right to a jury trial before the government may take life, liberty, or property has always been the rule,” Gorsuch wrote. “Yes, some exceptions exist. But perhaps it is past time for this court to examine more fully whether and to what degree contemporary civil forfeiture practices align with that rule and those exceptions.”
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