Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-22-07129/USCOURTS-caDC-22-07129-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 440
Nature of Suit: Other Civil Rights
Cause of Action: 

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United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued September 21, 2023 Decided August 9, 2024

No. 22-7129

OYOMA ASINOR AND BRYAN DOZIER,

APPELLANTS

v.

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, ET AL.,

APPELLEES

Consolidated with 22-7130

Appeals from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 1:21-cv-02158)

(No. 1:21-cv-02908)

Michael Perloff argued the cause for appellants. With him 

on the briefs were Kristin L. McGough, Scott Michelman, 

Arthur B. Spitzer, Tara L. Reinhart, and Jeffrey L. Light.

Thomas K. Clancy was on the brief for amici curiae 

Morgan Cloud and Thomas K. Clancy in support of appellants.

USCA Case #22-7129 Document #2069152 Filed: 08/09/2024 Page 1 of 29
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Zoé E. Friedland and Hanna Perry were on the brief for 

amicus curiae The Public Defender Service for the District of 

Columbia in support of appellants.

Amir H. Ali was on the brief for amici curiae The Roderick 

and Solange MacArthur Justice Center, et al. in support of 

appellants.

Marcella Coburn, Assistant Attorney General, Office of 

the Attorney General for the District of Columbia, argued the 

cause for appellees. With her on the brief were Brian L. 

Schwalb, Attorney General, Caroline S. Van Zile, Solicitor 

General, Ashwin P. Phatak, Principal Deputy Solicitor 

General, and Carl J. Schifferle, Deputy Solicitor General. 

Before: HENDERSON and KATSAS, Circuit Judges, and 

EDWARDS, Senior Circuit Judge.

Opinion for the Court by Circuit Judge KATSAS.

Concurring opinion filed by Circuit Judge HENDERSON.

KATSAS, Circuit Judge: The Fourth Amendment provides 

that “[t]he right of the people to be secure in their persons, 

houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and 

seizures, shall not be violated.” U.S. Const. Amend. IV. Under 

settled law, a seizure of personal effects incident to a lawful 

arrest is reasonable. This case presents the question whether 

the Fourth Amendment requires that any continued retention of 

such personal property—even after release of the arrested 

individuals—must also be reasonable. We hold that it does.

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I

The appellants in these consolidated appeals allege that the

District of Columbia, after arresting and releasing them without

charges, for months or years refused to return their personal

property seized incident to the arrests. On review of dismissal

orders, we assume that these allegations are true. City of

Harper Woods Emps.’ Ret. Sys. v. Oliver, 589 F.3d 1292, 1298

(D.C. Cir. 2009).

In Cameron v. District of Columbia, five plaintiffs allege

that they were among some 40 individuals arrested in a protest

on August 13, 2020. Upon arresting them, the Metropolitan

Police Department seized their personal effects, including their

cell phones. The plaintiffs were quickly released, and the MPD

neither pressed charges nor sought warrants to search or

continue to possess the phones. Despite many phone calls and

emails to the MPD and the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the

plaintiffs were unable to get their phones back.

The plaintiffs then invoked D.C. Rule of Criminal

Procedure 41(g), which allows a person aggrieved by “the

deprivation of property” to “move for the property’s return.” 

At first, the plaintiffs filed a Rule 41(g) motion in criminal

cases pending in the D.C. Superior Court against other

individuals arrested on August 13. The Deputy Clerk of that

court instructed the plaintiffs to refile their motion in a new,

standalone case. After they did so, the District returned the

phones of two plaintiffs—285 and 312 days after their arrests.

In November 2021, the five plaintiffs sued the District in

federal court. They alleged claims under the Fourth and Fifth

Amendments and common-law conversion, and they sought

damages and an injunction ordering the return of their property

still held by the MPD. They also sought to represent classes of

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August 13 arrestees whose property was not returned within a

reasonable amount of time. The District eventually returned

the other plaintiffs’ phones, more than a year and two months

after their arrests.

The district court dismissed the complaint. It reasoned that

the plaintiffs had failed to state a Fourth Amendment claim

because the initial seizure of their property was reasonable and

because any challenge to its continued retention was governed

exclusively by the Fifth Amendment. On the Fifth Amendment

claim, the court held that Rule 41(g) gave the plaintiffs

adequate process to recover their property. And having

dismissed the constitutional claims, the court declined to

exercise supplemental jurisdiction over the conversion claim

and denied the motion for class certification as moot.

In Asinor v. District of Columbia, a journalist alleges that

he was arrested while photographing an August 31, 2020

protest. When arresting him, the MPD seized his cell phone,

camera, and other effects. The journalist was released the same

day and informed that he would not face charges. Despite

repeated requests, he was unable to retrieve his property for

nearly a year. He sued and raised Fourth Amendment, Fifth

Amendment, and D.C.-law claims.

The district court dismissed the constitutional claims based

on its reasoning in Cameron. And it declined to exercise

supplemental jurisdiction over the other claims.

The plaintiffs in both cases appealed.

II

All agree that the MPD’s arrest of the plaintiffs was 

reasonable under the Fourth Amendment. And it is blackletter 

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law that, during an arrest, police may seize personal property 

held by the arrestee without a warrant. Riley v. California, 573 

U.S. 373, 384 (2014). So the District’s initial seizure of the 

plaintiffs’ effects did not violate the Fourth Amendment.

The question before us is whether the Fourth Amendment 

has anything to say about the many months in which the MPD

allegedly continued to hold the plaintiffs’ effects with no 

legitimate investigatory or protective purpose. The District

answers no. It contends that the Fourth Amendment governs 

the government’s taking of possession of an individual’s 

personal property, but not the government’s continued 

possession of the property.

We disagree. When the government seizes property 

incident to a lawful arrest, the Fourth Amendment requires that 

any continued possession of the property must be reasonable.

We reach this conclusion based on the Fourth Amendment’s 

text and history, as well as modern Supreme Court precedents 

regarding the constitutionally permissible duration of seizures, 

whether of property or persons.

A

The Fourth Amendment promises that “[t]he right of the 

people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, 

against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be 

violated.” U.S. Const. Amend. IV. If the right to be “secure” 

against “unreasonable ... seizures” speaks only to the initial 

moment when the government takes possession of property—

that is, the initial moment of seizure—then the District wins. 

But if this guarantee is instead concerned with the entire 

duration of the government’s possession of the property—that 

is, the entire period during which the property has been 

seized—then the plaintiffs win.

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The bare text of the Fourth Amendment does not answer 

this question definitively. Founding-era definitions of the word 

“seizure” are consistent with both readings. The 1773 edition 

of Johnson’s Dictionary defined the word seizure to include 

both “the act of taking forcible possession” and “gripe; 

possession.” 2 S. Johnson, “Seizure,” A Dictionary of the 

English Language (1773). In turn, it defined “gripe” as a noun 

meaning “grasp” or “hold.” 1 S. Johnson, “Gripe,” supra. 

These definitions suggest that the word “seizure” encompassed 

both the act of taking possession and continuing possession 

over time. In other words, when the Fourth Amendment was 

proposed and ratified, a “seizure” referred to both the act of 

taking possession and the ongoing state of having taken 

possession. But a narrower understanding, limited to the 

moment of taking possession, was also definitionally possible. 

In this respect, the meaning of “seizure” was ambiguous in the 

late eighteenth century, as it is today.

History helps resolve this semantic ambiguity. Because 

the Fourth Amendment codified a “pre-existing right,” District 

of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570, 592 (2008), it “must be 

read in light of” its history, Chimel v. California, 395 U.S. 752, 

760–61 (1969). And history favors the plaintiffs. As explained 

below, the Fourth Amendment protects possessory interests 

against government infringement in the same way that 

Founding-era common law protected possessory interests

against private infringement. And the common law authorized 

actions for damages and recovery of property that was lawfully 

taken, but then unlawfully possessed. History thus indicates 

that the government’s continued possession of the plaintiffs’ 

property must be reasonable.

The Fourth Amendment grew out of Antifederalist 

criticism of the original Constitution. Patrick Henry opposed 

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ratification in part because “any man may be seized, any 

property may be taken, in the most arbitrary manner, without 

any evidence or reason.” 3 Debates in the Several State 

Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution 588 

(Jonathan Elliott ed., 1891). This criticism was especially 

salient to the many who considered the Crown’s seizures of 

personal property to be among the grievances justifying the 

Revolutionary War—with some colonists comparing British

officers to “thieves” or lamenting that they would “take and 

carry away” their property without cause. See Brady, The Lost 

“Effects” of the Fourth Amendment: Giving Personal Property 

Due Protection, 125 Yale L. J. 946, 987–94, 991 & n.205

(2016) (cleaned up).

Consistent with this history, Fourth Amendment 

jurisprudence “reflects [the Amendment’s] close connection to 

property.” United States v. Jones, 565 U.S. 400, 405 (2012). 

The standards for identifying Fourth Amendment violations 

have been “tied to common-law trespass,” and the Amendment 

has been “understood to embody a particular concern for 

government trespass upon the areas (‘persons, houses, papers, 

and effects’) it enumerates.” Id. at 405–07.1

 So, to determine 

whether a particular action violates the Fourth Amendment, we 

must consider “whether the action was regarded as an unlawful 

search or seizure under the common law when the Amendment 

was framed.” Wyoming v. Houghton, 526 U.S. 295, 299 

1

 The Court later supplemented this “property-based approach” 

by holding that the Fourth Amendment also protects a person’s

“reasonable expectation of privacy.” Jones, 565 U.S. at 405–06 

(quoting Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 360 (1967) (Harlan, J., 

concurring)). But “the Katz reasonable-expectation-of-privacy test 

has been added to, not substituted for, the common-law trespassory 

test.” Id. at 409. 

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(1999); see California v. Hodari D., 499 U.S. 621, 626 n.2 

(1991). To be sure, not every government trespass upon the 

persons or effects protected by the Fourth Amendment is a 

“search” or “seizure.” Jones, 565 U.S. at 408 n.5. A search 

requires “an attempt to find something or to obtain 

information,” and a seizure requires “some meaningful 

interference with an individual’s possessory interests in ... 

property.” Id. But when one of these elements exists and there

is a violation of private property rights, the Fourth Amendment 

applies. For example, in Jones, the government’s placement of

a GPS tracker on a suspect’s car was a Fourth Amendment 

search because (1) the government attempted to find 

information, and (2) the act of placing an object on someone 

else’s property would have been a trespass under founding-era 

common law. See id. at 407–08, 408 n.5. By the same logic, 

there is a Fourth Amendment seizure if the government (1) 

meaningfully interferes with possessory interests in property in 

a way that (2) would have been understood to be an actionable 

property tort at common law.

2

The plaintiffs’ allegations satisfy both prongs of this test. 

The MPD meaningfully interfered with their possessory 

interests both by taking possession of their property and by

keeping it. The ongoing meaningful interference is selfevident; for as long as the MPD had control of the property, the 

plaintiffs could not possess it at all. And prolonged, 

unauthorized possession of a person’s property would have 

2

 Jones dealt with a search, not a seizure, and it discussed only 

the common law of trespass, not other remedies for interference with 

property like replevin, detinue, and trover. See generally Ames, 

History of Trover, 11 Harv. L. Rev. 374 (1897–1898). But Jones’s 

reasoning was not about the specific connection between trespass 

law and a “search”—it is about the broader relationship between the 

Fourth Amendment’s protections and common-law property rights.

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been actionable at common law even if the initial taking had 

been lawful. William Blackstone, “whose works constituted 

the preeminent authority on English law for the founding 

generation,” Alden v. Maine, 527 U.S. 706, 715 (1999), directly 

addressed this question. He described “the amotion or 

deprivation of ... possession” as an injury to the “rights of 

personal property in possession” that was “divisible into two 

branches; the unjust and unlawful taking them away; and the 

unjust detaining them, though the original taking might be 

lawful.” 3 W. Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of 

England 145 (1768). He further elaborated that “deprivation of 

possession may also be by an unjust detainer of another’s 

goods, though the original taking was lawful”—providing as 

one example a person who refused to return a borrowed horse. 

Id. at 150–51 (cleaned up). And he then set forth the different 

remedies available to recover the property and get damages for 

its wrongful detention, stating that the plaintiff “shall recover 

damages only for the detention and not for the caption, because 

the original taking was lawful.” Id. at 151–52.

In other words, the common law recognized that property 

interests are impaired not only at the instant when an owner 

loses possession, but also for as long as the owner cannot get 

the property back. And it provided remedies for wrongful 

interference with possessory rights regardless of whether the 

interference became wrongful at the moment of the initial 

seizure or only later. This history indicates that the Fourth 

Amendment governs the MPD’s continued retention, as well as 

its taking possession, of the plaintiffs’ property.

B

Modern caselaw confirms that the Fourth Amendment 

governs what happens after the government initially seizes 

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property. In United States v. Jacobsen, 466 U.S. 109 (1984), 

the government seized white powder, tested it, and determined 

that it was cocaine. Id. at 111. The Court had no trouble

holding that the initial seizure was lawful because it was 

supported by probable cause. Id. at 120–22. But the Court was 

not finished; it also analyzed whether the field test was 

reasonable, because “a seizure lawful at its inception can 

nevertheless violate the Fourth Amendment because its manner 

of execution unreasonably infringes possessory interests 

protected by the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition on 

‘unreasonable seizures.’” Id. at 124. The Court further 

explained that a seizure could become “unreasonable because 

its length unduly intruded upon constitutionally protected 

interests.” Id. at 124 n.25.

These principles govern this case. The MPD’s initial 

seizure of the plaintiffs’ effects was lawful because it was 

incident to their arrests. Such seizures are reasonable to protect 

the safety of arresting officers and to prevent any destruction 

of evidence. See Riley, 573 U.S. at 381–85. But here, the 

plaintiffs allege that the government continued to possess their 

property for many months after it lacked any legitimate interest 

in protecting officers or investigating possible criminal 

behavior. And after the government’s legitimate interests 

dissipated, harm to the plaintiffs continued to accrue: It is one 

thing not to have access to a cell phone while spending a night 

in jail. It is quite another not to have access to it for the 

following year. Some plaintiffs allege that they had to replace 

their phones, a significant financial harm. And some allege that 

they lost access to important information like passwords, 

photographs, and contact information for friends and family. 

So the plaintiffs have alleged that the seizures at issue, though 

lawful at their inception, later came to unreasonably interfere 

with their protected possessory interests in their own property.

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The District contends that Jacobsen merely applied United 

States v. Place, 462 U.S. 696 (1983). And it argues that Place 

dealt not with the question whether a seizure lawfully carried 

out can later become unlawful, but with the question whether 

probable cause or reasonable suspicion was the necessary 

standard for justifying a seizure that involved retaining a 

traveler’s suspicious luggage for 90 minutes. See id. at 707–

10. But regardless of Place, Jacobsen announced and applied 

the rule set forth above, in a case presenting no question about

when an initial seizure could be justified based only on 

reasonable suspicion. Moreover, a majority of Justices have 

reiterated that Jacobsen and Place set forth a general rule

regarding the permissible duration of full-fledged seizures. See 

Segura v. United States, 468 U.S. 796, 812 (1984) (plurality

opinion) (“Of course, a seizure reasonable at its inception 

because based upon probable cause may become unreasonable 

as a result of its duration or for other reasons.”); id. at 823 

(Stevens, J., dissenting) (“Even a seizure reasonable at its 

inception can become unreasonable because of its duration.”).

The District objects that this statement of law from Segura does 

not bind us because it was not joined by a majority of Justices 

who concurred in the judgment. See Marks v. United States, 

430 U.S. 188, 193 (1977). But the fact that six of nine Justices 

expressed this view certainly suggests that Jacobsen is not

somehow limited to Place’s facts.

The District further seeks to distinguish Jacobsen because

the field test there, which destroyed a small portion of the

seized cocaine, led to a permanent deprivation of the relevant

property interests, while this case has no comparable intrusion. 

True enough, the plaintiffs do not allege that the MPD has

destroyed or physically damaged their property. But Jacobsen

cannot fairly be limited to cases involving destruction of

property. The Court stated unequivocally that a seizure’s

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“length” and “manner of execution” can make an initially

lawful seizure unlawful. Jacobsen, 466 U.S. at 124 & n.25.

This suggests a concern not only with destruction of property,

but with any change in circumstances that makes unreasonable

the government’s ongoing interference with possessory

property interests.

C

The modern caselaw on the seizure of individuals further 

confirms our conclusion. When a person is seized, the Fourth 

Amendment requires reasonableness not only at the moment of 

arrest, but also for the seizure’s entire duration. We see no 

textual, historical, or other reason to say that the Fourth 

Amendment protects against the government’s prolonged 

seizure of persons but not its prolonged seizure of effects.

In Manuel v. City of Joliet, 580 U.S. 357 (2017), the

Supreme Court held that after a person is arrested, the Fourth 

Amendment requires any pretrial detention to remain 

reasonable even after the commencement of formal legal 

process. Id. at 359–60. The Court explained that the continued 

detention of an individual is an ongoing “seizure”: Manuel 

alleged that government officials “detained—which is to say, 

‘seized’—[him] for 48 days following his arrest. And that 

detention was ‘unreasonable,’ the complaint continued, 

because it was based solely on false evidence, rather than 

supported by probable cause.” Id. at 364 (cleaned up). And 

the Fourth Amendment required continuing reasonableness 

over time, Manuel argued, even after the start of formal 

criminal process. See id. at 362. The Supreme Court agreed, 

holding that “Manuel’s claim fits the Fourth Amendment, and 

the Fourth Amendment fits Manuel’s claim, as hand in glove.” 

Id. at 364.

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The same logic applies here. The plaintiffs allege that 

MPD retained—which is to say, “seized”—their property for 

over eight months after their arrests. And they allege that this

continued seizure was unreasonable because it served no 

legitimate investigatory or protective purpose. By its terms, the 

Fourth Amendment prohibits unreasonable seizures of 

“persons, houses, papers, and effects,” which suggests that the 

four listed terms receive analogous protection. Neither text, 

grammar, nor history suggest that seizures are ongoing events 

when directed at “persons” but mere snapshots when directed 

at “houses, papers, and effects.”

Likewise, this Court has held that the Fourth Amendment 

requires officers to release an arrestee from custody—that is, 

to end their seizure of a person—if new facts dissipate the 

probable cause that justified a warrantless arrest. Lin v. District 

of Columbia, 47 F.4th 828, 841 (D.C. Cir. 2022). This 

principle also covers the claims here. If the rationales that 

justified the initial retention of the plaintiffs’ effects dissipated, 

and if no new justification for retaining the effects arose, then 

the Fourth Amendment obliged the MPD to return the 

plaintiffs’ effects.

The District counters that Torres v. Madrid, 592 U.S. 306

(2021), distinguishes seizures of persons and effects. True 

enough, Torres did hold that a person, but not an effect, is 

“seized” if shot by a government official. Id. at 309, 322–23. 

This distinction was based on the “unremarkable proposition 

that the nature of a seizure can depend on the nature of the 

object being seized.” Id. at 324. The proposition mattered 

because the seizure of a person implicates the common law of 

arrest, while the seizure of an effect does not. Id. at 312–13. 

But while Torres thus explained why people and effects are

different in the specific context of a shooting, the District offers 

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no good reason why people and effects are different with 

respect to ongoing seizures in general. Moreover, even 

Torres’s limited and “unremarkable” conclusion was a 

contested departure from the ordinary presumption that “courts 

cannot give a single word different meanings depending on the 

happenstance of which object it is modifying.” Id. at 332 

(Gorsuch, J., dissenting) (cleaned up). So, Torres does not 

justify a categorical break between Fourth Amendment law 

governing persons and its law governing effects.

More narrowly, the District argues that governments must 

apply continuing force to seized persons, who would often wish 

to flee, which is why Manuel recognized the need for ongoing 

reasonableness of the detention. In contrast, the District

argues, there is no continuing application of force against an 

inanimate object, and thus no need for its prolonged retention 

to be reasonable. This argument misses the point. Of course, 

the government does not use force against a cell phone, just as 

it does not infringe upon the property interests of a cell phone. 

But it infringes upon a person’s possessory property interests

in a cell phone. And whether the government infringes upon a 

liberty or property interest, it hopes to avoid using force, but 

will do so if necessary. An arrested individual will be subjected 

to force if he tries to walk out of his jail cell. But so too will a 

cell phone owner who tries to walk into police headquarters to 

remove the phone from an evidence locker. In both instances, 

the government is prepared to use force to prolong an ongoing

deprivation of liberty or property. If the Fourth Amendment 

addresses the former, we see no reason why it does not also 

address the latter.

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III

The District makes several counterarguments based on 

caselaw, the Fifth Amendment, and assertedly dire 

consequences. We find none of them convincing.

A

The District contends that Hodari D. and Torres resolve 

any semantic ambiguity in the word “seizure.” According to 

the District, those cases establish that “seizure” means “taking 

possession” and refers to a “single act” rather than a 

“continuous fact.” Torres, 592 U.S. at 312, 323; Hodari D., 

499 U.S. at 624, 625. The District argues that these statements

show that its “seizure” occurred only when the MPD took the 

plaintiffs’ property into its possession—and that only that 

single act must be reasonable.

We disagree. Viewed in isolation, these snippets sound 

good for the District. But Hodari D. and Torres both address 

what must happen for the government to effect a seizure in the 

first place; neither case presents the question whether a seizure 

must remain reasonable over time. Read in context, the 

highlighted statements do not support the District’s position, 

which is inconsistent with many other cases.

In Hodari D., the Supreme Court rejected an argument that 

a suspect had been “seized” when he saw a police officer 

running toward him; instead, the seizure occurred only when 

the officer tackled him. 499 U.S. at 622–23, 629. The Court 

reasoned that, at common law, a “seizure” required “taking 

possession.” Id. at 624. But although the suspect was not 

seized until the police took possession of him, that does not 

make prolonged detention after the initial arrest any less of a 

seizure. Then—with a cf. citation to a 19th century case about 

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the seizure of a ship—the Court said that a “seizure is a single 

act, and not a continuous fact” to bolster its point that, had the 

suspect escaped custody, there would have been no “continuing 

arrest during the period of fugitivity.” Id. at 625 (quoting 

Thompson v. Whitman, 85 U.S. (18 Wall.) 457, 471 (1874)). 

But that does not mean there is no continuing seizure when the 

police continue to hold a person or property in custody.

Torres is similar. As discussed above, it held that the 

police had “seized” a fleeing suspect when they shot but failed 

to detain her. The Court acknowledged Hodari D.’s statement 

that “from the time of the founding to the present, the word 

‘seizure’ has meant a ‘taking possession’” immediately before 

explaining that “seizure” can also have a broader meaning that 

encompasses the common law of arrest. See 592 U.S. at 312–

13 (cleaned up). And it reasoned—echoing the second portion 

of Hodari D. just discussed—that “a seizure is a single act, and 

not a continuous fact” to explain the line-drawing issues that 

would arise if shooting a suspect did not constitute a seizure. 

See id. at 323 (cleaned up). At no point did the Court suggest 

that the suspect stopped being seized after she was shot—only 

that she had been seized once shot. Like Hodari D., Torres 

simply does not address the question whether the prohibition 

on “unreasonable seizures” applies only for a single moment or 

for the duration of the government’s possession.

Other cases, however, do address this question. 

Blackletter Fourth Amendment law—including the caselaw 

that we have already discussed—establishes that a “seizure” 

has a duration. Jacobsen said that a lawful seizure may become

“unreasonable because [of] its length.” 466 U.S. at 124 n.25. 

And Manuel described a prisoner as having been “detained—

which is to say, ‘seized’ ... for 48 days.” 580 U.S. at 364. Still 

other cases likewise have described “seizures” as reflecting an 

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ongoing state. See, e.g., Rodriguez v. United States, 575 U.S. 

348, 354 (2015) (noting that the “tolerable duration” of a traffic 

stop depends on the “seizure’s mission” (cleaned up)); Illinois 

v. Caballes, 543 U.S. 405, 407 (2005) (citing Jacobsen for the 

proposition that the “initial seizure” of a traffic stop that was 

“concededly lawful” could “become unlawful” if it were

“prolonged beyond the time reasonably required”); Gerstein v. 

Pugh, 420 U.S. 103, 114 (1975) (holding that, even though 

warrantless arrests do not always run afoul of the Fourth 

Amendment, “the Fourth Amendment requires a judicial 

determination of probable cause as a prerequisite to extended 

restraint of liberty following arrest”).

The two lines of cases can be reconciled. Hodari D. and 

Torres show that the government “takes possession” of a 

person or object at a single moment in time. The other cases 

show that, once the government has taken possession of a 

person or object, its conduct must remain reasonable over time. 

At both the moment of seizure and throughout its duration, the 

government’s conduct must be reasonable—consistent with 

both founding-era meanings of the word “seizure.”

B

The District acknowledges a constitutional obligation to 

return the plaintiffs’ property, but it locates the duty in the Fifth 

Amendment’s guarantee that no person shall be “deprived of 

... property, without due process of law.” U.S. Const. Amend 

V. In other words, because the Fifth Amendment protects the 

plaintiffs’ ongoing possessory interests, the Fourth 

Amendment does not.

But constitutional provisions do not preempt one another

like that. Indeed, the Supreme Court has already rejected the

argument that the Fourth Amendment does not apply to 

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interferences with property rights just because the Fifth 

Amendment does. Soldal v. Cook County, 506 U.S. 56, 70–71

(1992). The Court reasoned that “[c]ertain wrongs affect more 

than a single right and, accordingly, can implicate more than 

one of the Constitution’s commands.” Id. at 70. And if 

“multiple violations are alleged,” we must “examine each 

constitutional provision in turn.” Id. So, the question whether 

this case implicates procedural due process, substantive due 

process, or the Takings Clause is irrelevant to the question 

whether it also implicates the Fourth Amendment.

Even if we had to pick between constitutional provisions, 

we do not share the District’s confidence that the Fifth 

Amendment fits the plaintiffs’ claims better than the Fourth. 

The District argues that a hearing under D.C. Criminal Rule

41(g)—which allows a “person aggrieved” by a property 

deprivation to “move for the property’s return”—affords 

constitutionally sufficient process for the adjudication of the 

plaintiffs’ claims. But even if a hearing under Rule 41(g) 

provides adequate process, the question remains what 

substantive law would require the District to return property

held without justification. We are reluctant to reduce this 

entirely to a question of D.C. law, which would eliminate 

substantive constitutional protection for the property rights at 

issue. As for other portions of the Fifth Amendment, it is 

unclear whether the government’s continued retention of 

lawfully seized property would constitute an unconstitutional 

taking. See Bennis v. Michigan, 516 U.S. 442, 452 (1996). 

And we prefer guideposts from “an explicit textual source of 

constitutional protection against a particular sort of 

government behavior” to the more amorphous standards of 

“substantive due process.” Abdelfattah v. DHS, 787 F.3d 524, 

541 (D.C. Cir. 2015) (cleaned up). Here, the Fourth 

Amendment is just such a textual source; it “was tailored 

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19

explicitly for the criminal justice system” and strikes a 

“balance between individual and public interests” that has 

always “been thought to define the ‘process that is due’ for 

seizures of persons or property in criminal cases.” Gerstein, 

420 U.S. at 125 n.27. An argument that we need not consider

the Fourth Amendment because of substantive due process thus 

gets things backward; instead, we need not consider

substantive due process because of the Fourth Amendment.

C

The District points to two decisions that it says reject 

Fourth Amendment claims in analogous contexts: Tate v. 

District of Columbia, 627 F.3d 904 (D.C. Cir. 2010), and City 

of West Covina v. Perkins, 525 U.S. 234 (1999). We find both 

cases distinguishable.

In Tate, we considered a Fourth Amendment challenge to 

the sale of an impounded vehicle to pay two outstanding 

parking tickets. 627 F.3d at 906–07. Christina Tate argued that 

the sale was a disproportionate response to her tickets. Id. at 

912. We rejected her Fourth Amendment claim, because the 

“sale itself was not a ‘seizure’ of Tate’s vehicle which was 

already in the District’s lawful possession and control.” Id. We 

held that the sale was “properly subject to constitutional 

challenge, if at all, under the Fifth Amendment as an unlawful 

taking or a violation of due process.” Id. But in that case, the 

District had assumed title to the vehicle under a “forfeiture 

regime” governing abandoned property. Id. at 907–09, 912. 

And once title was transferred, Tate lacked any ongoing 

property interest. So, at that point, the District’s conduct 

stopped being a “seizure” and became a permanent claim of 

title. We held that a constitutional challenge to that claim fell 

under the Fifth Amendment, not the Fourth. Id. at 908–09, 

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911–12. But here, the District never claimed title to the 

disputed property, so Tate sheds little light on this case.

City of West Covina is even farther afield. There, the Court 

held that procedural due process does not require the 

government “to give detailed and specific instructions or 

advice to owners who seek return of property lawfully seized 

but no longer needed for police investigation or criminal 

prosecution.” 525 U.S. at 236. No Fourth Amendment claim 

was raised or considered. And because nobody “contest[ed]

the right of the State to have seized the property in the first 

instance or its ultimate obligation to return it,” the Court set 

aside any question about what rules may restrict “the 

substantive power of the State to take property.” Id. at 240. 

This framing of the question, assuming a protected property 

interest and addressing what procedural protections must 

attach, simply does not address whether the Fourth 

Amendment requires the government’s ongoing possession of 

seized property to be substantively reasonable.3

D

Finally, the District warns of the consequences of holding 

that the Fourth Amendment requires ongoing retention of 

seized property to be reasonable. The District frets that such a 

ruling would constitutionalize pedestrian, state-law rules about 

3

 The District also notes that some of our sister Circuits have 

held that the Fourth Amendment does not address the reasonableness 

of the government’s continuing retention of lawfully seized effects. 

See, e.g., Lee v. City of Chicago, 330 F.3d 456, 460–66 (7th Cir. 

2003); Fox v. Van Oosterum, 176 F.3d 342, 349–52 (6th Cir. 1999). 

But the Ninth Circuit has adopted our approach. See Brewster v. 

Beck, 859 F.3d 1194, 1196–98 (9th Cir. 2017). And for reasons 

explained above, we find its conclusion more persuasive.

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21

how to return arrestees’ property. In Soldal, the government 

likewise objected that applying the Fourth Amendment would 

involve “federalizing areas of law traditionally the concern of 

the States.” 506 U.S. at 71. But like the Court in Soldal, we 

“think the risk is exaggerated.” Id. 

The Fourth Amendment prohibits only unreasonable 

seizures—which only modestly restricts the government’s 

ability to continue retaining lawfully seized property. Of 

course, it can reasonably retain contraband or evidence in an 

ongoing criminal investigation or trial. See United States v. 

Farrell, 606 F.2d 1341, 1347 (D.C. Cir. 1979). It can also seek

warrants to search seized cell phones or other personal 

property. See Riley, 573 U.S. at 401. Nothing in our holding 

limits the government’s ability to use seized effects for 

legitimate law-enforcement purposes.

Moreover, even when there the government no longer has 

a valid reason to retain lawfully seized property, we do not 

suggest that it must always return the property instantaneously. 

Matching a person with his effects can be difficult, as can the 

logistics of storage and inventory. And the retention of 

personal property is, of course, less burdensome than being 

held in custody. In other words, returning seized effects will 

often be more difficult for the government and less important 

to the affected individuals than releasing seized persons—

which means that some delays that would be unreasonable as 

to persons may be reasonable as to effects.

At the same time, the Fourth Amendment does require

continuing retention of seized property to be reasonable. And 

the plaintiffs’ allegations raise serious questions about the 

reasonableness of the MPD’s handling of their property for 

months or years after their release from custody without 

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22

charges. The district court erred in concluding that these 

allegations do not implicate the Fourth Amendment.4

IV

Having resolved the Fourth Amendment claims, we turn 

to the other issues in this appeal. The plaintiffs do not

challenge the dismissal of their Fifth Amendment claims. But

both sets of plaintiffs argue that the district court should 

reconsider its decision not to exercise supplemental jurisdiction 

over their D.C.-law claims, and the Cameron plaintiffs also 

argue that the district court should reevaluate its denial of class 

certification in their case.

We agree. The sole rationale that the district court offered 

for declining to exercise supplemental jurisdiction was that 

there were no federal claims left in the cases. And the sole 

rationale for denying class certification in Cameron was that 

the merits dismissals had mooted the certification issue. 

Because our decision has overtaken both rationales, the district 

court should reconsider whether supplemental jurisdiction and 

class certification are appropriate.

4 The parties appear to agree, as do we, that the district court 

misread the complaints as alleging an alternative theory that the 

MPD unreasonably delayed a search of the plaintiffs’ property. The 

Fourth Amendment claims here rest only on the MPD’s prolonged 

retention of the property itself. Because the district court held that 

the complaints stated no Fourth Amendment violation, it did not 

reach the question whether the complaints adequately alleged a 

municipal custom or policy under Monell v. Department of Social 

Services, 436 U.S. 658 (1977). We decline to address that question 

in the first instance. 

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V

For these reasons, we reverse the dismissal of the Fourth 

Amendment claims; vacate the dismissal of the D.C.-law 

claims and the denial of class certification in Cameron; and 

remand both cases for further proceedings consistent with this 

opinion.

So ordered.

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KAREN LECRAFT HENDERSON, Circuit Judge, concurring: I 

join the majority opinion in full. The Fourth Amendment’s 

protections do not cease once the government takes possession 

of an individual’s property. I write separately to explain why I 

believe we correctly part ways with many of our sister circuits. 

Five circuits — the First, Second, Sixth, Seventh and 

Eleventh — have held in precedential opinions that the Fourth 

Amendment does not support a claim for the government’s 

retention of legally seized property. Denault v. Ahern, 857 F.3d 

76, 84 (1st Cir. 2017); Shaul v. Cherry Valley-Springfield Cent. 

Sch. Dist., 363 F.3d 177, 187 (2d Cir. 2004); Fox v. Van 

Oosterum, 176 F.3d 342, 351 (6th Cir. 1999); Lee v. City of 

Chicago, 330 F.3d 456, 466 (7th Cir. 2003); Case v. Eslinger, 

555 F.3d 1317, 1330 (11th Cir. 2009). Only the Ninth Circuit 

disagrees. Brewster v. Beck, 859 F.3d 1194, 1197 (9th Cir. 

2017).1 Granted, we should hesitate before rejecting a robust 

consensus from our sister circuits but here, I believe, their 

reasoning lacks the power to persuade because they fail to 

discuss the key Supreme Court precedent, United States v. 

Jacobsen, 466 U.S. 109 (1984).

To begin with, most of the contrary opinions have 

considered the issue only in passing. In Denault, the plaintiffs 

halfheartedly raised a continuing seizure claim but made “no 

effort” to “explain why the alleged violation of their 

constitutional rights sound[ed] in the Fourth Amendment.” 857 

F.3d at 83. The First Circuit rejected the theory without 

independent analysis because plaintiffs had “offered no reason 

to disagree” with the circuits that had already rejected such a 

theory. Id. at 84. The Second Circuit simply reasoned that “a 

seizure claim based on the unlawful retention [of property] was 

too ‘novel’ a theory to warrant Fourth Amendment protection.” 

Shaul, 363 F.3d at 187 (quoting United States v. Jakobetz, 955 

1 The Fourth Circuit may also agree with us. See Mom’s Inc. v. 

Willman, 109 F. App’x 629, 637 (4th Cir. 2004) (unpublished).

USCA Case #22-7129 Document #2069152 Filed: 08/09/2024 Page 24 of 29
2

F.2d 786, 802 (2d Cir.1992)); see also Denault, 857 F.3d at 83 

(noting that “the Second Circuit rejected the seizure-includesretention theory out of hand”). The Eleventh Circuit gave the 

issue almost equally short shrift. See Casey, 555 F.3d at 1330–

31. None of these opinions discussed relevant Supreme Court 

precedent or competing definitions of “seizure.”

The Sixth Circuit’s opinion in Fox and the Seventh 

Circuit’s opinion in Lee are exceptions. Fox reasoned that the 

Supreme Court had found a seizure of property only in “cases 

where there is no debate that the challenged act is one of taking 

property away from an individual and the issue is whether that 

act of taking property away constitutes a meaningful 

interference with possessory interests.” 176 F.3d at 351. 

Because it concentrated on the moment of taking, the Fox court 

concluded that “the Fourth Amendment protects an 

individual’s interest in retaining possession of property but not 

the interest in regaining possession of property.” Id. Lee 

reached its conclusion differently. It relied on what it 

considered the “temporally limited” definition of “seizure” at 

the Founding, on in-circuit precedent rejecting the idea of 

continuing seizures in the context of persons and the “practical 

concerns” it foresaw in extending the Fourth Amendment. See 

Lee, 330 F.3d at 462–65. 

But Fox and Lee, thorough as they are in many respects, 

focused on the wrong Supreme Court precedent. Both 

discussed United States v. Place, 462 U.S. 696 (1983), without 

recognizing that the Court’s later Jacobsen decision extended 

Place. See Lee, 330 F.3d at 464; Fox, 176 F.3d at 351 n.6. In 

Place, law enforcement took a suspicious traveler’s luggage 

and held it for ninety minutes before securing a narcotics dog 

to conduct a “sniff test” for drugs. Id. at 699. The Court held 

that law enforcement may, as a general matter, detain property 

“on the basis of less than probable cause, for the purpose of 

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3

pursuing a limited course of investigation,” id. at 702, 

“provided that the investigative detention is properly limited in 

scope,” id. at 706. But the Court went on to hold that the seizure 

at issue was unreasonable because of “[t]he length of the 

detention of respondent’s luggage.” Id. at 709. As Fox and Lee 

recognized, the reason that the length of the detention was 

crucial in Place was the fact that law enforcement lacked 

probable cause. See Lee, 330 F.3d at 464; Fox, 176 F.3d at 351 

n.6. Although “some brief detentions of personal effects may 

be so minimally intrusive of Fourth Amendment interests” that 

they can be justified on less than probable cause, Place, 462 

U.S. at 706, the Court emphasized that “the brevity of the 

invasion of the individual’s Fourth Amendment interests is an 

important factor in determining whether the seizure is so 

minimally intrusive as to be justifiable on reasonable 

suspicion,” id. at 709. 

Standing alone, Place offers little rationale for finding that 

the Fourth Amendment applies to the government’s retention 

of lawfully seized property. The fact that investigatory 

detentions made without probable cause must be of a 

reasonable duration does not dictate that the Fourth 

Amendment requires the same for all property seizures. But the 

Court added to Place in Jacobsen, which connection neither 

Fox nor Lee discussed.2 There, the government seized white 

powder from a package and tested it to determine that it was 

cocaine. Jacobsen, 466 U.S. at 111. The Court held the 

powder’s initial seizure was supported by probable cause. Id. 

at 120–22. But, critically for our purpose, the Court then turned 

to the reasonability of the government’s actions after the initial 

lawful seizure: “whether the additional intrusion occasioned by 

the field test . . . was an unlawful ‘search’ or ‘seizure’ within 

2 Jacobsen is scarcely cited across the two opinions and never 

for the portion of it pertinent here.

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4

the meaning of the Fourth Amendment.” Id. at 122. The Court 

explained that, under Place, “a seizure lawful at its inception 

can nevertheless violate the Fourth Amendment because its 

manner of execution unreasonably infringes possessory 

interests protected by the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition on 

‘unreasonable seizures.’” Id. at 124. In a footnote, the Court 

described Place as holding that “while the initial seizure of 

luggage for the purpose of subjecting it to a ‘dog sniff’ test was 

reasonable, the seizure became unreasonable because its length 

unduly intruded upon constitutionally protected interests.” Id.

at 124 n.25. The Court ultimately found that the field test, 

which destroyed “a trace amount” of the powder, was 

reasonable. Id. at 125.

I respectfully submit that our two sister circuits have failed 

to recognize that Jacobsen broadened Place.

3 Jacobsen applied 

Place in a new context, extending it from its investigatory 

detention origin to circumstances in which a full and lawful 

“initial seizure” had already occurred. See id. at 124 (internal 

quotation marks removed). Thus, when Jacobsen refers to 

“seizure[s] lawful at [their] inception,” id., it refers not just to 

the narrow class of seizures at issue in Place but to all lawful 

seizures of property. Those seizures “can nevertheless violate 

the Fourth Amendment” if their “manner of execution 

unreasonably infringes possessory interests protected by the 

Fourth Amendment[].” Id.

Nor, in my view, can a seizure’s “manner of execution” be 

read as somehow distinct from its duration. True, the only time 

Jacobsen refers to the “length” of a seizure is in the footnote 

describing Place’s holding. See id. at 124 n.25. But that 

footnote immediately follows the “manner of execution” 

3 It is no coincidence that the only circuit to reach our 

conclusion cited Jacobsen in support. See Beck, 859 F.3d at 1196, 

1197.

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5

sentence; in context, then, the Court suggested that an 

unreasonable length is one way the execution of an initially 

lawful seizure can violate the Fourth Amendment. Indeed, in 

one sense, the respondent’s challenge to the field test was a 

challenge to the duration of the seizure: the test “destroy[ed] a 

quantity of the powder” and therefore “converted what had 

been only a temporary deprivation of possessory interests into 

a permanent one.” Id. at 124–25. When the government 

destroys property, the length of the seizure is necessarily 

“permanent.” However one characterizes the field test

challenge, the bottom line is that the Supreme Court 

unequivocally held that what the government does with seized 

property can sometimes violate the Fourth Amendment even 

though “the property ha[s] already been lawfully detained.” Id. 

at 125. I believe the Fourth Amendment’s continued 

applicability after the initial seizure cannot be squared with the 

notion that “[o]nce th[e] act of taking the property is complete, 

the seizure has ended and the Fourth Amendment no longer 

applies.” Fox, 176 F.3d at 351; see also Lee, 330 F.3d at 466 

(“Once an individual has been meaningfully dispossessed, the 

seizure of the property is complete, and once justified by 

probable cause, that seizure is reasonable. The amendment then 

cannot be invoked by the dispossessed owner to regain his 

property.”).4

4 As my colleagues note, see Maj. Op. 12–13, the Supreme 

Court’s more recent decision in Manuel v. City of Joliet, 580 U.S. 

357 (2017), lends further support to our conclusion. There, the Court 

held that the Fourth Amendment applies throughout the duration of 

a person’s pretrial detention. See id. at 366 (“[T]hose objecting to a 

pretrial deprivation of liberty may invoke the Fourth Amendment 

when (as here) that deprivation occurs after legal process 

commences.”). Under the most natural reading of the Fourth 

Amendment, we should give analogous protection against the seizure 

of “persons” and “effects,” at least absent a well-defined historical 

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6

In sum, I agree with my colleagues that Jacobsen 

“govern[s] this case.” Maj. Op. at 10. And, for the reasons I 

have given, I am untroubled that our holding puts us on the 

minority side of a circuit split.

tradition to the contrary. See Torres v. Madrid, 592 U.S. 306, 324 

(2021). To me, Manuel suggests as a corollary that Fourth 

Amendment protections for property endure over time, too.

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