Wide Seizure Laws OKd by High Court

The Supreme Court, in a surprising victory for the broad use of a state’s forfeiture power, ruled Monday that prosecutors can seize the property of an “innocent owner” if it was used in a crime.

On a 5-4 vote, the court upheld a Michigan prosecutor’s seizure of a woman’s 1977 Pontiac on the grounds that her steelworker husband had used it to meet with a prostitute on a Detroit street.

Officials not only fined the husband for an act of “gross indecency” but seized the family car as a “public nuisance.”

Tina Bennis, the man’s wife, appealed all the way to the Supreme Court, contending that her half-share of the car could not be taken away because she had done nothing wrong. The Constitution protects an innocent person from the punishment of losing her property, she maintained.

But the high court disagreed. “The Bennis automobile . . . was used in criminal activity,” said Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist. “A long and unbroken line of cases holds that an owner’s interest in property may be forfeited by reason of the use to which the property is put, even though the owner did not know that it was to be put to such use.”

The ruling sends a word of warning to the owners of boats, airplanes, apartments, cars and other property. If others use the items in an illegal way--such as to sell or ship drugs--the owners could lose their property in a forfeiture action.

Monday’s ruling allows officials “to exercise virtually unbridled power to confiscate vast amounts of property,” said Justice John Paul Stevens, speaking for the dissenters.

It is not clear, however, that the ruling will have such wide impact.

Congress exempted innocent owners from the federal forfeiture laws, so long as they could show they did not know that their property was being used for illegal purposes.

Many states also do not allow forfeitures from innocent parties. Even in those states where it is allowed, prosecutors may choose not to seek a seizure if it is clear that an owner of a boat or a condominium did not know how it was being used.

In California, the state forfeiture law also includes an exception for innocent owners who were not involved in the criminal activity. “This ruling should have no direct impact on us,” said Steve Telliano, a spokesman for Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren.

Nonetheless, the ruling leaves the matter in the hands of local prosecutors and state lawmakers, many of whom have supported aggressive efforts to seize property that is linked to criminal activity. It surprised many lawyers because the high court itself has moved recently to limit forfeitures.

In 1993, the court said all persons, including convicted criminals, are entitled to a full hearing before their property is seized. The justices also said seizures cannot be excessive. For example, the government cannot seize a person’s house and business because he sold a few marijuana cigarettes there.

But this time, the court sided with prosecutors, thanks to a key vote by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, President Clinton’s first appointee, who sided with Rehnquist.

On the campaign trail, Republican presidential candidate Patrick J. Buchanan has derided Ginsburg as a liberal activist, but she has compiled a rather conservative record in crime cases. In a concurring opinion, she praised Michigan authorities for “deterring Johns from using cars they own to contribute to neighborhood blight.”

“This decision gives the green light to police and prosecutors to not be particularly concerned about whether the property they confiscate belongs to the innocent or the guilty,” said Scott Bullock, an attorney for the Institute of Justice, a libertarian group.

Rehnquist pointed to a long line of maritime cases dating to 18th-century England. If a ship tried to smuggle goods without paying customs taxes, officials could seize the vessel and its cargo, regardless of whether its owner knew of this illegal activity.

The chief justice noted a piracy case from 1827 that said the vessel is “considered as the offender,” not the owner. That peculiar principle carried forward to the Prohibition-era cases of the 1920s, when the court upheld the seizure of a man’s car because a friend had used it to run illegal booze.

In 1988, a Wayne County, Mich., prosecutor revived a similar Prohibition-era law and decided to seize cars used in prostitution as a “public nuisance.”

“The state here sought to deter illegal activity that contributes to neighborhood deterioration,” and based “on our long-standing practice” in forfeiture cases, they may do so, Rehnquist said. His opinion in Bennis vs. Michigan, 94-8729, was joined by Justices Sandra Day O’Connor, Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Ginsburg.

Joining Stevens in dissent were Justices Anthony M. Kennedy, David H. Souter and Stephen G. Breyer.

Meanwhile, the court shielded the U.S. government from having to cover $31 million in damages paid by the two makers of Agent Orange, the defoliant used during the Vietnam War. On a 6-2 vote, the court said the government did not promise to cover the manufacturer’s liability. Breyer and O’Connor dissented in Hercules Inc. vs. U.S., 94-818.