In the

United States Court of Appeals 

For the Seventh Circuit ____________________ 

No. 21-2891 

JEVARREO KELLEY-LOMAX, 

Plaintiff-Appellant, 

v.

CITY OF CHICAGO, ILLINOIS, 

Defendant-Appellee. 

____________________ 

Appeal from the United States District Court for the

Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division.

No. 20 C 4638 — John Z. Lee, Judge. 

____________________ 

ARGUED SEPTEMBER 12, 2022 — DECIDED SEPTEMBER 28, 2022 

____________________ 

Before EASTERBROOK, KIRSCH, and JACKSON-AKIWUMI, Circuit Judges. 

EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judge. A person arrested in Chicago 

can take some property into jail but must surrender other 

property, including cell phones. Chicago offers the detainee 

30 days to reclaim the property in person (if released before 

then) or by proxy—the detainee may designate a friend or relative to pick it up. Property remaining in the City’s hands after 30 days is sold or thrown away. Conyers v. Chicago, 10 F.4th 
2 No. 21-2891 

704 (7th Cir. 2021), cert. denied, 142 S. Ct. 1669 (2022), rejects 

several constitutional challenges to the City’s policy. 

Jevarreo Kelley-Lomax wants us to take another look at 

the subject. After he was arrested, he remained in custody for 

more than 30 days and did not find anyone willing to retrieve 

his property. The City disposed of a cell phone and a wallet, 

including a debit card and library card, that the police had 

seized. Deeming the suit controlled by Conyers, the district 

court dismissed the complaint for failure to state a claim on 

which relief may be granted. 

Conyers held, among other things, that the Fourth Amendment (applied to state actors by the Fourteenth) does not regulate disposition of the seized property. 10 F.4th at 709–10. 

Disposition, we concluded, is governed by the Due Process 

Clause. The Fourth Amendment is satisfied if the seizure is 

reasonable when it occurs—as seizure of an arrestee’s property is, see Lee v. Chicago, 330 F.3d 456 (7th Cir. 2003). KelleyLomax wants us to overrule this portion of Conyers, but we do 

not see any deficiency in that opinion’s reasoning. 

Conyers rejected a due process challenge to the City’s policy, holding that the City provides detainees with notice and 

an opportunity to reclaim their property. Kelley-Lomax tries 

a different tack: substantive due process. He maintains that 

the City must serve as unpaid custodian of his goods for as 

long as it takes for him (or his designee) to retrieve the items. 

Put in that way, the argument lacks any prospect of success. Substantive due process depends on the existence of a 

fundamental right, which means a right with deep roots in 

our history and traditions. See, e.g., Washington v. Glucksberg, 

521 U.S. 702, 721 (1997); Timbs v. Indiana, 139 S. Ct. 682, 686–
No. 21-2891 3 

87 (2019); Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, 142 S. 

Ct. 2228, 2246–48 (2022). Kelley-Lomax does not contend that 

our historical tradition recognizes a right to have the government serve as unpaid custodian of property for extended periods. Instead he characterizes the fundamental right as property itself. 

We do not doubt that property is a fundamental right; the 

Takings Clause shows as much. But, as we explained in Conyers, property can be abandoned. After that occurs the former owner lacks rights. 10 F.4th at 712. Chicago draws the 

abandonment line at 30 days. That choice cannot be acacked 

by pointing to the fundamental status of “property” in the abstract. Instead the plaintiff must address the actual policy at 

stake: the government’s unwillingness to serve as unpaid 

bailee for indefinite periods. And on that score Kelley-Lomax 

does not even try to show that such a role for government has 

historical provenance. 

Conyers remarked that 30 days is a short time for a detainee 

to take the steps necessary to retrieve property. 10 F.4th at 715. 

Perhaps it is too short. The Due Process Clause requires notice 

and an adequate opportunity to protect one’s interests. But in 

this case, just as in Conyers, the plaintiff has made an all-ornone argument. Instead of contending that the Constitution 

requires 60 or 90 days, Kelley-Lomax contends that a detainee 

is entitled to wait a lifetime before claiming the property. Perhaps that strategy is driven by the fact that during the whole 

six months he remained in custody, Kelley-Lomax did not try 

to retrieve the phone or wallet. The choice between 30 days 

and a longer time did not macer to Kelley-Lomax. But it may 

macer to other detainees, and Conyers leaves timing open. 
4 No. 21-2891 

Conyers also does not tackle the question whether Chicago 

must sell the seized items for the detainees’ accounts rather 

than throwing them in the trash. Units of government often 

take custody of unclaimed property, returning it once the 

owner has been identified (provided that the time for escheat 

has not arrived). We held in Cerajeski v. Zoeller, 735 F.3d 577 

(7th Cir. 2013), and Goldberg v. Frerichs, 912 F.3d 1009 (7th Cir. 

2019), that, when the property is financial (securities or 

money on deposit), the government must return it with interest once the owner steps forward. Cf. Webb’s Fabulous Pharmacies, Inc. v. Beckwith, 449 U.S. 155 (1980); Brown v. Legal Foundation of Washington, 538 U.S. 216 (2003). The government may 

charge custodial fees but must surrender the balance. 

That approach works well with monetary instruments. 

Physical items seized from arrested persons make claims on 

limited space, and for many detainees the costs of arranging 

a sale in order to free up space would exceed the value of the 

items in inventory. But cell phones and jewelry often have 

substantial market value. When the governmental interest is 

limited to rationing available storage, perhaps the option of 

sale for detainees’ accounts must be considered. See also 

United States v. Miller, 588 F.3d 418 (7th Cir. 2009) (seized firearms that have not been forfeited may be sold for owner’s account but must not be destroyed if they have value net of expenses for custody and sale). Conyers did not make an argument along these lines, and neither did Kelley-Lomax. We 

mention the possibility not to resolve it, but to show that neither Conyers nor this decision has resolved it implicitly. 

AFFIRMED