Divided Supreme Court rules quick hearing not required when police seize property

WASHINGTON (AP) — A divided Supreme Court ruled Thursday that authorities do not have to hold a speedy hearing when seizing 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 to have their cars returned. Police had stopped the cars when they were being driven by other people and after finding drugs, confiscated 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 call it “legalized theft.”

Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote for the conservative majority that a civil forfeiture hearing to determine whether an owner will permanently lose the property must be timely. But he said the Constitution also doesn’t require a separate hearing on whether police should be allowed to keep 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 keep the property.

“In short, law enforcement can seize cars, hold them indefinitely, and then rely on the owner not having the wherewithal to retain those cars to fund agency budgets, all without prior review by a judge, “whether there is any basis for withholding the car at all,” Sotomayor wrote.

The women, Halima Culley and Lena Sutton, filed federal lawsuits arguing they were entitled to an immediate trial, which 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 lent her car to a friend. Police in Leesburg, Alabama, confiscated it when they arrested him for trafficking methamphetamine.

Sutton was without a car for 14 months, during which time she was unable to find work, pay bills or keep her psychiatric treatment appointments, her attorneys wrote in court papers.

Culley had bought a car for her son to take to college. Police in Satsuma, Alabama, stopped the car and found marijuana and a loaded hangun. They charged the son with marijuana possession and kept the car.

justice Neil Gorsuch was part of the majority Thursday, but in an opinion joined by Justice Clarence Thomas, Gorsuch said larger questions about the application of civil forfeiture remain unresolved.

Noting that civil forfeiture has become a “booming business,” 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 cannot be taken “without due process.” “Legal proceedings” may be stolen.