Supreme Court Considers Whether Due Process Clause Requires Post-Seizure Probable Cause Hearings for Innocent Vehicle Owners

In Culley v. Marshall, the Supreme Court is asked to determine whether the Due Process Clause requires a state or local government to provide a post-seizure probable cause hearing before a statutorily-required civil forfeiture proceeding. In determining whether a hearing is required, the Court must decide which rule applies: the “speedy trial” test employed in United States v. $8,850, 461 U.S. 555 (1983), and Barker v. Wingo, 407 U.S. 514 (1972), as held by the Eleventh Circuit, or the three-part due process analysis set forth in Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 U.S. 319 (1976), as held by at least the Second, Fifth, Seventh, and Ninth Circuits.

Halima Tariffa Culley and Lena Sutton lent their cars to friends and family who were later arrested for drug possession. The cars were seized under Alabama’s civil forfeiture statute, and the cities initiated civil forfeiture proceedings to sell or retain the vehicles. The civil forfeiture law contains an exception for innocent vehicle owners. But it does not provide for a specific post-seizure hearing during the underlying criminal litigation. The cities held both cars for over a year before returning them, after Culley and Sutton proved at merits hearings that they were innocent owners. Culley and Sutton subsequently filed class action lawsuits under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, claiming that the defendants’ failure to provide a prompt post-deprivation hearing violated their rights under the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. Both district courts dismissed the complaints. The Eleventh Circuit affirmed based on circuit precedent, holding that vehicle owners have no right to post-seizure hearings.

Culley and Sutton ask the Supreme Court to decide that the Mathews due process test should apply because it has long been used to govern civil forfeiture cases to guard against the risk of mistaken and unwarranted deprivation of property. There are three prongs to consider under Mathews: (1) the private interest affected; (2) the risk of an erroneous deprivation of that interest through the existing procedures used, as well as the probable value of additional safeguards; and (3) the government’s interest. In contrast, the Barker test addresses whether the government violated a criminal defendant’s Sixth Amendment right to a speedy trial, a case that did not involve a civil forfeiture proceeding.

The Alabama Attorney General, argued that Culley and Sutton “slept on their rights” because they failed to take advantage of already-available interim remedies. For example, they could have participated in the criminal proceedings, initiated independent proceedings, or executed a bond after seizure for the immediate release of the vehicles. He also argued that the State of Alabama promptly initiated civil forfeiture actions, but any delay was due to Culley and Sutton’s failure to engage in the proceedings for over a year. According to the Attorney General, no due process violation existed, and the lower court properly applied Barker to address the timeliness concerns.

The Solicitor General of the United States, arguing as amicus curiae, reasoned that allowing an independent right to an extra layer of post-seizure proceedings would disrupt the legislative judgments, as well as private and public interests already in place. The Solicitor General highlighted that interim remedies were available, a process sufficient for civil due process.

At oral argument, several Justices, including Justices Gorsuch and Sotomayor, registered concerns about the continued use of civil asset forfeiture without sufficient safeguards against prolonged and, in the case of innocent owners, improper government seizures of private property. Both Justices seemed especially troubled by facts suggesting that such seizures appeared to operate as a profit center for many jurisdictions, and thus vulnerable to abuse. 

Other Justices, however, appeared concerned about a more fundamental constitutional question.  Justices Thomas, Kavanaugh, and Barrett raised the antecedent question of whether the Constitution or precedent like Von Newman require additional proceedings. If the answer is “no,” presumably the Court need not reach the question of which test should apply if, like Alabama, a jurisdiction decides to provide an innocent-owner defense and thereby creates and imposes on itself additional due process requirements. Even in such a case, Justices Thomas and Alito questioned Culley and Sutton’s due process claims given their failures to pursue available avenues to reclaim their property earlier in the proceedings. The Chief Justice seconded the concern, asking whether the record contained statistics or facts about how often Alabama courts grant motions to expedite when affected parties do pursue their rights to reclaim property. 

Likewise, Justice Kagan pushed back on a distinction Justice Sotomayor made between a process-oriented retention hearing and the dispositive final determination hearing, suggesting that, as a practical matter, had Culley and Sutton pursued their reclaim rights earlier and provided sufficient proof that they were innocent owners, the government likely would have abandoned the forfeiture cases rather than waste resources knowing the likely outcome. Justice Alito also seemed concerned with the practicalities of severely backlogged dockets and the realistic capacity of localities, and in particular police officers, to be prepared for quicker (questioning the meaning of “reasonably prompt”) hearings given the proof factors inherent in the innocent owner defense.

This case was argued on October 30, 2023. A decision is expected later in the term. Stay tuned for Dykema’s client alert discussing the Court’s opinion.

For more information, please contact Chantel Febus, James Azadian, David Schenck, Theodore Seitz, Christopher Sakauye, McKenna Crisp, Monika Harris, or Puja Valera.