Divided Supreme Court rules no quick hearing required when police seize property
WASHINGTON — A divided Supreme Court ruled Thursday that authorities do not have to hold a speedy hearing when they seize cars and other property used in drug crimes, even if the property belongs to so-called innocent owners.
By a 6-3 vote, the justices rejected the claims of two Alabama women who had to wait more than a year for the return of their car. Police had stopped the cars when they were being driven by other people and, after finding drugs, seized the vehicles.
Civil forfeiture allows authorities to seize a person’s property without having to prove that it was used for illegal purposes. Critics of the practice describe it as “legalized theft.”
Writing for the conservative majority, Justice Brett Kavanaugh said a civil forfeiture hearing to determine whether an owner will permanently lose the property should be timely. But he said the Constitution does not also require a separate hearing on whether police can detain cars or other property in the meantime.
In a dissent for the court’s liberal members, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote that civil forfeiture is “vulnerable to abuse” because police departments often have a financial incentive to preserve the property.
“In short, law enforcement can seize cars, hold them indefinitely, and then rely on the owner’s lack of resources to forfeit those cars to fund agency budgets, all without any initial review by a judge or there is a basis to hold the car.” car in the first place,” Sotomayor wrote.
The women, Halima Culley and Lena Sutton, filed federal lawsuits arguing that they were entitled to a speedy hearing that would have resulted in the cars being returned to them much sooner. There was no indication that either woman was involved in or knew anything about the illegal activity.
Sutton had loaned her car to a friend. Police in Leesburg, Alabama seized it when they arrested him for trafficking methamphetamine.
Sutton was without her car for 14 months, during which she could not find work, pay bills or keep her mental health appointments, her lawyers wrote in court documents.
Culley had bought a car for her son to use in college. Police in Satsuma, Alabama stopped the car and found marijuana and a loaded hangun. They charged the son with marijuana possession and detained the car.
Justice Neil Gorsuch was part of Thursday’s majority, but in an opinion also joined by Justice Clarence Thomas, Gorsuch said larger questions about the use of civil forfeiture remain unresolved.
Gorsuch wrote that the court should use a future case to assess whether the modern practice of civil forfeiture is consistent with constitutional guarantees that property may not be taken “without due process of law.”