Bennis v. Michigan opened the door to Bills of Pain and Penalty in the USA

Thanks for the quick reply logicrules. Nowhere did I claim that Bennis was a good decision. But there's a big difference between being a bad decision and allowing BILLS OF ATTAINDER. ==Michigan's law was NOT a Bill of Attainder== Remember the example I gave of a Bill of Attainder: Winston Churchill during WWII proposed a law in England that would have allowed the summary execution of Nazis and Nazi sympathizers. This is a Bill of Attainder because it declares all Nazis and Nazi sympathizers to be criminals without allowing them a trial. Just because someone is a Nazi sympathizer DOES NOT mean they had spied for the Nazis, had killed British citizens, or had sabotaged military installations. The theory of justice in a democracy requires that treason charges be proved at trial, not legislated into existence. The Michigan law was NOT a Bill of Attainder. It said that people who were guilty of COMMITTING A CRIME inside certain properties (cars, buildings, airplanes, boats) could forfeit those properties as punishment. Mr. Bennis was CAUGHT having sex with a prostitute in his old Pontiac. If he was found innocent at trial (of having sex with a prostitute), the car would have been returned to him. Thus, the law leaves it to the courts to determine whether certain behavior was criminal. As such, it cannot be a Bill of Attainder. As the Court said in it's concluding statements, a key part of the case was that "The Bennis automobile, it is conceded, facilitated and was used in criminal activity." Ms. Bennis AGREED that the car had been used in criminal activity. In her petition to the Supreme Court, she never alleged her husband to be innocent. ==The Constitution== My opponent listed, correctly, that Supreme Court cases take precedent over circuit court cases, which take precedent over district court cases. However, the Constitution supersedes even the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court cannot rule a Constitutional provision "unconstitutional" or overrule it in any other way. Since the Constitution forbids Bills of Attainder, there's simply no way that this case COULD allow them. If a city, state, or Congress passed a Bill of Attainder and the case was brought before the Supreme Court, the Court would have no choice but to overrule the Bill of Attainder. It's also clear the Court WOULD do so since they make it clear in the Bennis decision that their intent was NOT to allow the unjust seizing of property. The Court makes it clear in their decision that they would FEEL DIFFERENTLY about awarding Ms. Bennis her stake in the property, had it not been clear from the lower court that there was no money left after the sale of the automobile. The Supreme Court writes, "At bottom, petitioner's claims depend on an argument that the Michigan forfeiture statute is unfair because it relieves prosecutors from the burden of separating co owners who are complicit in the wrongful use of property from innocent co owners. This argument, in the abstract, has considerable appeal . . . Its force is reduced in the instant case, however, by . . . the trial court's remedial discretion." The majority opinion explains that each forfeiture is accompanied by a forfeiture proceeding, which is a court hearing where innocent co-owners can petition the court for their share in the property. These forfeiture proceedings check any potential government abuses of forfeiture law in seizing property. == precedent vs. not precedent == When you read a Supreme Court case, there are parts of the decision that are considered "precedent setting," and there are merits of the case that the Court refuses to rule upon, as to not set a precedent. The Court typically tries to rule as narrowly as possible on cases. The only precedent setting part of this decision is that the "innocent owner defense" is still invalid. However, this is not a departure from previous law. The innocent owner defense was never considered valid in forfeiture proceedings, which is precisely why the Court had to reach so far back to find precedent, since no one has bothered challenging the Court on the innocent owner defense in many, many years. ==Is this a radical decision?== My opponent makes this out to be a radical decision. It is not. It merely upholds past precedent. As the Court said, "We conclude today, as we concluded 75 years ago, that the cases authorizing actions of the kind at issue are 'too firmly fixed in the punitive and remedial jurisprudence of the country to be now displaced.'" The innocent owner defense has ALWAYS been considered invalid, at least for the past 75 years. If this allows Bills of Attainder, then why haven't we ALREADY seen Bills of Attainder? I'm interested to see my opponent's response to this question.