Prof Who Equates Forfeiture With Bullying Won’t Get Due Process Ruling
The U.S. Supreme Court won’t rule on the constitutional claims of six Illinois property owners who contended delayed hearings on the return of forfeited assets violated their due process rights.
Today, the Supreme Court found that the case is moot because the underlying property disputes have all ended. “The state has returned all the cars that it seized, and the individual property owners have either forfeited any relevant cash or have accepted as final the state’s return of some of it,” Justice Stephen G. Breyer wrote in the opinion (PDF) for the court.
One of the plaintiffs, Tyhesha Brunston, lost access to her car for three years after her friend was arrested for drug possession while driving the vehicle. Her lawyer, University of Chicago law professor Craig Futterman, had said in a Wall Street Journal interview that the case is really about “government bullying.” For law enforcement, “forfeiture has become a multibillion-dollar business across the nation,” he told the newspaper.
Today’s Supreme Court opinion vacated and remanded the case with instructions to dismiss. The case is Alvarez v. Smith.
Hat tip to SCOTUSblog.
