Opinion ID: 779364
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Temporary Deprivations of Property Pendente Lite

Text: 30 Temporary deprivation of real or personal property pendente lite in a forfeiture action must satisfy the demands of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Supreme Court has held that even a brief and provisional deprivation of property pending judgment is of constitutional importance. See Fuentes, 407 U.S. at 84-85, 92 S.Ct. 1983 ([I]t is now well settled that a temporary, nonfinal deprivation of property is nonetheless a `deprivation' in the terms of the Fourteenth Amendment.); see also United States v. Monsanto, 924 F.2d 1186, 1192 (2d Cir.1991) (noting that a temporary and nonfinal removal of a defendant's assets, pursuant to a federal criminal forfeiture statute and pending resolution of the criminal case, is, nonetheless, a deprivation of property subject to the constraints of due process) (quotation marks omitted). Plaintiffs here have not challenged the procedural safeguards under New York law that guarantee the accuracy of any final judgment of forfeiture. Instead, they question the legitimacy of and justification for the intermediate deprivation of their property occasioned after seizure of the vehicle and before judgment in civil forfeiture proceedings under N.Y.C.Code § 14-140, and, indeed, before those proceedings are even commenced. See James Daniel Good Real Prop., 510 U.S. at 56, 114 S.Ct. 492 (The question in the civil forfeiture context is whether ex parte seizure is justified by a pressing need for prompt action.); Fuentes, 407 U.S. at 80-81, 92 S.Ct. 1983 (stating that due process is intended to minimize substantively unfair or mistaken deprivations of property). 31 The district court in this case collapsed the separate issues of probable cause and due process into a single analysis and, applying the test for due process set forth in Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 U.S. 319, 96 S.Ct. 893, 47 L.Ed.2d 18 (1976), concluded that plaintiffs had alleged no facts to suggest that a probable cause arrest is a procedure that is unusually unreliable, Krimstock, 2000 WL 1702035, at , and further concluded that plaintiffs' due process right to a meaningful hearing at a meaningful time does not require the additional safeguard of a probable cause hearing, id. at . In reaching this determination, the court applied the speedy trial test as deployed in the federal customs case of United States v. $8,850, 461 U.S. 555, 103 S.Ct. 2005, 76 L.Ed.2d 143 (1983), and held that plaintiffs' due process interests are fully protected by the eventual forfeiture proceeding. Id. 12 32 The district court's analysis resembles the approach taken by the New York Supreme Court in Grinberg v. Safir, in which a DWI arrestee brought an Article 78 proceeding to contest the City's seizure of his 1988 Acura for forfeiture. In response to Grinberg's Fourth Amendment challenge to the seizure and retention of his vehicle, the court, citing various warrantless arrest and seizure exceptions, held that [o]nce an object is permissibly seized as an instrumentality during an arrest, no warrant, pretrial hearing or judicial approval is needed for retention during the criminal action. Grinberg, 181 Misc.2d at 452, 694 N.Y.S.2d at 323. The court also found that Grinberg's Fourteenth Amendment right to a meaningful hearing at a meaningful time had not been violated. Citing the speedy trial test as applied in $8,850, the court reasoned that [i]f pendency of a criminal action is a legitimate reason for the delayed filing of a forfeiture proceeding, then retention of the subject vehicle without a hearing, while the criminal action is pending, is also permissible. Grinberg, 181 Misc.2d at 456, 694 N.Y.S.2d at 326. 33 For reasons discussed more fully below, we disagree with these courts' conclusions. Contrary to the district court's determination in the present case, a warrantless arrest by itself does not constitute an adequate, neutral procedure for testing the City's justification for continued and often lengthy detention of a vehicle which may be owned by the arrestee or by someone entirely unconnected with the conduct that gave rise to the arrest. Further, to say that the forfeiture proceeding, which often occurs more than a year after a vehicle's seizure, represents a meaningful opportunity to be heard at a meaningful time on the issue of continued impoundment is to stretch the sense of that venerable phrase to the breaking point. We also consider it a non sequitur to hold, as the Grinberg court did, that because postponing the commencement of a forfeiture action pending the underlying criminal proceeding may not offend due process, retention of the seized vehicle without a hearing throughout that same period, or longer, is constitutionally permissible. The issues of a speedy trial and a prompt retention hearing are not parallel in this context, particularly when less restrictive methods for protecting the City's interest in the allegedly offending res are available. Cf. Lee v. Thornton, 538 F.2d 27, 32 (2d Cir.1976) (Deprivation of means of transportation for [substantial] periods requires an opportunity to be heard.); DeBellis v. Property Clerk, 79 N.Y.2d 49, 57, 580 N.Y.S.2d 157, 161, 588 N.E.2d 55 (1992) (The core principle of the Second Circuit's McClendon decision is that, although the government may seize and hold a citizen's property for a variety of reasons in connection with a criminal or related proceeding, once those proceedings have terminated or it is determined that the property is not related to or is otherwise not needed for those proceedings, due process requires that the property be returned upon demand unless the government can establish a new basis for its detention.). 34 In sum, just as in the attachment and seizure cases cited above, the purpose of requiring due process in the present circumstances is not only to ensure abstract fair play to the individual, but more particularly, ... to protect his [or her] use and possession of property from arbitrary encroachment — to minimize substantively unfair or mistaken deprivations of property. James Daniel Good Real Prop., 510 U.S. at 53, 114 S.Ct. 492 (quotation marks and citation omitted). We conclude that plaintiffs have a right under the Fourteenth Amendment to ask what justification the City has for retention of their vehicles during the pendency of proceedings, cf. id. at 56, 61, 114 S.Ct. 492, and to put that question to the City at an early point after seizure in order to minimize any arbitrary or mistaken encroachment upon plaintiffs' use and possession of their property. 35