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524US2

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UNITED STATES v. BAJAKAJIAN

Opinion of the Court

myra, 12 Wheat. 1, 13 (1827) (forfeiture of ship); Dobbins’s
Distillery v. United States, 96 U. S. 395, 400–401 (1878) (for-
feiture of distillery)).
In so doing, the Government relies
upon a series of cases involving traditional civil in rem for-
feitures that are inapposite because such forfeitures were
historically considered nonpunitive.

The theory behind such forfeitures was the ﬁction that the
action was directed against “guilty property,” rather than
against the offender himself.5 See, e. g., Various Items of
Personal Property v. United States, 282 U. S. 577, 581 (1931)
(“[I]t is the property which is proceeded against, and, by
resort to a legal ﬁction, held guilty and condemned as though
it were conscious instead of inanimate and insentient”); see
also R. Waples, Proceedings In Rem 13, 205–209 (1882).
Historically, the conduct of the property owner was irrele-
vant; indeed, the owner of forfeited property could be en-
tirely innocent of any crime. See, e. g., Origet v. United
States, 125 U. S. 240, 246 (1888) (“[T]he merchandise is to be
forfeited irrespective of any criminal prosecution. . . . The
person punished for the offence may be an entirely different
person from the owner of the merchandise, or any person
interested in it. The forfeiture of the goods of the principal
can form no part of the personal punishment of his agent”).
As Justice Story explained:

“The thing is here primarily considered as the offender,
or rather the offence is attached primarily to the thing;
and this, whether the offence be malum prohibitum, or

5 The “guilty property” theory behind in rem forfeiture can be traced to
the Bible, which describes property being sacriﬁced to God as a means of
atoning for an offense. See Exodus 21:28.
In medieval Europe and at
common law, this concept evolved into the law of deodand, in which offend-
ing property was condemned and conﬁscated by the church or the Crown
in remediation for the harm it had caused. See 1 M. Hale, Pleas of the
Crown 420–424 (1st Am. ed. 1847); 1 W. Blackstone, Commentaries on the
Laws of England 290–292 (1765); O. Holmes, The Common Law 10–13,
23–27 (M. Howe ed. 1963).