Future Retirement Success
  • Politics
  • Business
  • Investing
  • Stocks
  • Politics
  • Business
  • Investing
  • Stocks

Future Retirement Success

Investing

Possible Good News on Reform of Civil Forfeiture?

by June 7, 2024
June 7, 2024
Possible Good News on Reform of Civil Forfeiture?

Jeffrey Miron

A recent Supreme Court ruling on civil forfeiture, while seemingly a setback for critics of the practice, nevertheless contains some good news. 

Civil forfeiture occurs when police seize property they suspect was involved in or obtained through crime. The owner must then prove the property’s innocence to reclaim it.

States must ordinarily provide notice and a hearing before seizing property. If the property in question could otherwise be removed, destroyed, or concealed before a hearing, however, police can seize it without these steps. 

Civil forfeiture started during the colonial years under British maritime law. If a ship owner violated custom laws, enforcement could seize ships and cargo even if the owner was difficult to capture.

Forfeiture has expanded dramatically as a weapon in the War on Drugs (similarly to the Prohibition era). One crucial development has been that law enforcement agencies can often keep the proceeds from auctioning seized property, which creates an incentive to seize more property and complicate the retrieval processes. This seems likely to distort balanced enforcement of laws and is inconsistent with the presumption of innocence.

In a recent case about civil forfeiture, the Supreme Court ruled against two women in Alabama:

Halima Culley bought a 2015 Nissan Altima for her son to use at college. He was pulled over by the police in 2019 and arrested when they found marijuana. They also seized Ms. Culley’s car. That same year, Lena Sutton lent her 2012 Chevrolet Sonic to a friend. He was stopped for speeding and arrested after the police found methamphetamine. Ms. Sutton’s car was also seized.

Both women eventually convinced the courts to return their cars, but their cases took over a year. Culley and Sutton filed suit in federal court, arguing that, in the interest of “timely resolution,” civil forfeiture should allow property owners to prove “innocent ownership” in a preliminary hearing, before cases moved forwards. 

The court ruled 6–3 that while due process requires timely resolution, it does not always require a separate preliminary hearing. This is disappointing for critics of civil forfeiture, since defining and enforcing “timeliness” is messy (although the same could be true of preliminary hearings). 

The good news is that five justices expressed serious reservations about current practices.

Justices Gorsuch and Thomas, although agreeing that preliminary hearings should not be required, emphasized the abusive practices of today’s civil forfeiture:

[T]his promise [the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments] usually meant that a government seeking to deprive an individual of her property could do so only after a trial before a jury in which it (not the individual) bore the burden of proof. […] So how is it that, in civil forfeiture, the government may confiscate property first and provide process later?

Justice Sotomayor, joined by Justices Kagan and Jackson, criticized the perverse incentives for officers to hold on to seized property.

A crucial step in reducing the negatives of civil forfeiture is repeal of drug prohibition. Then, police would have far fewer occasions to claim that property was involved in a crime.

With or without legalization, civil forfeiture would also be less onerous and more consistent with due process if: 

The government required a criminal conviction before seizing assets.

The government had the burden of proof.

Forfeited property went to the federal treasury rather than the police, to remove corrupt incentives.

Here’s hoping a future case leads to such changes.

Lemoni Matsumoto, an undergraduate at the University of Chicago, contributed to this article.

0
FacebookTwitterGoogle +Pinterest
previous post
David Boaz: Champion of Educational Freedom
next post
S&P 500 Still Bullish: This Is What You Should Watch For

You may also like

Government Efficiency Starts with Rejuvenating FOIA

December 11, 2024

Itinerant Baseball Team May “Need” More Taxpayer Funds

December 9, 2024

The Pros and Cons of a Universal Basic...

October 18, 2024

Expensing Is Key in Any Pro‐​Growth Tax Package

April 20, 2023

We Have a Bad Globalization Narrative, Not Bad...

April 7, 2025

You Say You Want Fintech Competition, You Better...

November 26, 2024

Friday Feature: Freedom Learning Academy

September 29, 2023

Call for Papers: Cato Health Policy Workshop 2025

April 23, 2025

Questioning the Housing Crisis: Demand Matters Too

December 17, 2024

Bitcoin: Problems and Prospects

July 29, 2022

    Get free access to all of the retirement secrets and income strategies from our experts! or Join The Exclusive Subscription Today And Get the Premium Articles Acess for Free

    By opting in you agree to receive emails from us and our affiliates. Your information is secure and your privacy is protected.

    Recent Posts

    • Disabling Trump’s “Tariff Button”

      June 5, 2025
    • ‘Sick puppy’ Tim Walz should never have been on Dems’ 2024 ticket, Trump says

      June 5, 2025
    • Federal judge orders Trump to restore funding to Clinton-era agency gutted by DOGE

      June 5, 2025
    • Musk says Trump would have lost 2024 election without him as ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ feud continues

      June 5, 2025
    • Ex-Biden adviser calls Jean-Pierre ‘kinda dumb,’ deletes tweet, says she’s not a ‘genius-level Black woman’

      June 5, 2025
    • ‘Coming for us’: Expert sounds alarm on CCP’s mission to ‘kill Americans’ after FBI makes shocking arrests

      June 5, 2025

    Categories

    • Business (8,148)
    • Investing (2,010)
    • Politics (15,535)
    • Stocks (3,128)
    • About us
    • Privacy Policy
    • Terms & Conditions

    Disclaimer: futureretirementsuccess.com, its managers, its employees, and assigns (collectively “The Company”) do not make any guarantee or warranty about what is advertised above. Information provided by this website is for research purposes only and should not be considered as personalized financial advice. The Company is not affiliated with, nor does it receive compensation from, any specific security. The Company is not registered or licensed by any governing body in any jurisdiction to give investing advice or provide investment recommendation. Any investments recommended here should be taken into consideration only after consulting with your investment advisor and after reviewing the prospectus or financial statements of the company.

    Copyright © 2025 futureretirementsuccess.com | All Rights Reserved