Supreme Court declines to establish new asset forfeiture criteria

The Supreme Court on Thursday ruled against two Alabama women seeking immediate hearings to reclaim property that was seized from them after crimes committed by other people, a move that declines to set a new asset forfeiture standard.

In a 6-3 decision penned by Justice Brett Kavanaugh, the Supreme Court wrote that the due process clause requires timely forfeiture hearings but does not require a preliminary hearing, marking a blow to the plaintiffs in the case. The court was divided along ideological lines, with all six Republican-appointed justices in the majority.

Plaintiffs Halima Culley and Lena Sutton filed class actions against the state of Alabama and their local governments, claiming their due process rights were violated because they did not receive prompt hearings after their cars were seized.

Culley’s son was driving her 2015 Nissan Altima when police pulled him over and found marijuana, drug paraphernalia, and a loaded pistol in the car. In Sutton’s case, her friend was using her 2012 Chevrolet Sonic when police pulled him over for speeding and discovered methamphetamine in the car.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit in the Culley and Sutton cases held that the “speedy trial” test, formed to resolve allegations of Sixth Amendment violations, applied and that due process is satisfied by the civil forfeiture process itself.

Alabama Attorney General Steven Marshall, a Republican, had called on the high court to uphold the 11th Circuit’s ruling, saying that the Supreme Court “for centuries” has held that civil forfeitures need not inquire into the guilt or innocence of the property’s owner, “only the use of the property itself in a prohibited act,” according to a brief.

Civil forfeiture laws, which are in place in all 50 states and Washington, D.C., allow law enforcement officers to seize property, such as a vehicle, if it is used in connection to a crime, even if the property is owned by an innocent party.

Between 2000 and 2019, states and the federal government pocketed a total of $68.8 billion through forfeiture, as police departments across the country rake in millions of dollars worth of property each year.

Democratic-appointed Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented.

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Sotomayor wrote that when a police officer has a “financial incentive” to hold on to a vehicle and an owner pleads innocence, the petitioners contend “a retention hearing at least ensures that the officer has probable cause to connect the owner and the car to a crime.”

“Today, the Court holds that the Due Process Clause never requires that minimal safeguard,” Sotomayor added. “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.”