Opinion ID: 1770580
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: The Louisiana Constitution

Text: The foregoing makes it abundantly clear that courts in other jurisdictions, and particularly the U.S. Supreme Court, do not find that forfeiture proceedings are mandated by due process to be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. Also, the cases cited in Manuel for the proposition that forfeiture is penal do not support the idea that forfeiture proceedings should be treated as criminal for all purposes. This being so, one must look to the Louisiana Constitution to see whether it mandates a higher burden of proof. This inquiry is particularly necessary in light of this Court's reference in Manuel to the more detailed safeguards for property rights contained in our state charter. Manuel, 426 So.2d at 147. Two provisions of the Louisiana Constitution are relevant to this discussion. La. Const. Art. I, § 2 reads: No person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property, except by due process of law. La. Const. Art. I, § 4 reads: Every person has the right to acquire, own, control, use, enjoy, protect, and dispose of private property. This right is subject to reasonable statutory restrictions and the reasonable exercise of the police power. Property shall not be taken or damaged by the state or its political subdivisions except for public purposes and with just compensation paid to the owner or into court for his benefit. Property shall not be taken or damaged by any private entity authorized by law to expropriate, except for a public and necessary purpose and with just compensation paid to the owner; in such proceedings, whether the purpose is public and necessary shall be a judicial question. In every expropriation, a party has the right to trial by jury to determine compensation, and the owner shall be compensated to the full extent of his loss. No business enterprise or any of its assets shall be taken for the purpose of operating that enterprise or halting competition with a government enterprise. However, a municipality may expropriate a utility within its jurisdiction. Personal effects, other than contraband, shall never be taken. This Section shall not apply to appropriation of property necessary for levee and levee drainage purposes.
It is difficult to conclude Section Two of the Louisiana Declaration of Rights affords greater due process protection than does the due process clause in the Federal Constitution. The language of the two provisions is almost identical. The U.S. Fourteenth amendment provides that no State shall deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law. U.S. Const. amend. XIV, § 1. Not only is the language almost identical, but a co-author of the Louisiana Declaration of Rights believes that Section Two continues the standard of `fundamental fairness' used to determine whether governmental action violates those `principles of justice which lie at the base of all of our civil and political institutions.' Louis Woody Jenkins, The Declaration of Rights, 21 Loyola L.Rev. 9, 16 (1975). This standard does not differ from the federal standard. As recited above, the federal and state constitutions both provide that no person shall be deprived of property without due process of law, but balanced against this substantial due process right, however, is the police power of governing authorities to protect the health, safety, morals and general welfare of the people. Theriot v. Terrebonne Parish Police Jury, 436 So.2d 515, 519-20 (La.1983). Moreover, in regard to the taking of property, the federal and state due process guarantees requires only that the legislature have a rational relationship to a legitimate state interest. Id. at 520; City of New Orleans v. Dukes, 427 U.S. 297, 96 S.Ct. 2513, 49 L.Ed.2d 511 (1976); Williamson v. Lee Optical, 348 U.S. 483, 75 S.Ct. 461, 99 L.Ed. 563 (1955); Harry's Hardware, Inc. v. Parsons, 410 So.2d 735 (La.1982). Clearly the State has a legitimate interest in curbing the illegal drug trade, and the means chosen by forfeiture rationally serves that end by preventing drug dealers from using their property to engage in further illegal acts.
As regards Section Four of the Declaration of Rights it has been stated [t]he right to own and control private property is recognized and given far-reaching new protection in another entirely new Section entitled `Right to Property.' Certainly, no other state constitution places such extensive limitations on the power and authority of government to regulate or expropriate private property. Jenkins, supra, at 19. This statement is undoubtedly correct, and if a greater protection from forfeiture is to be found in our Constitution, then it must lie in Section Four rather than Section Two. The language of Section Four is, indeed, not entirely found in the Federal Constitution. Despite the great reach of Section Four in the protection of property, it is apparent the reach does not extend to requiring proof beyond a reasonable doubt in forfeiture proceedings. The language and the history of this provision make this clear. At the Constitutional Convention hearings Mr. Jenkins was asked by Mr. Henry to explain the section. XII Constitutional Convention of 1974, Verbatim Transcripts, p. 6 (Aug. 30, 1973). Mr. Jenkins began by saying that property rights are as important as liberty rights because in Socialist countries where the government owns the means of production, even though liberty is guaranteed, liberty is less possible. For example, free press is less free because government owns so much of the business enterprises which advertise. Id. at 6-7. The first sentence of Section Four, explained Mr. Jenkins, means simply this. It does not mean that a person has a right with regard to any given piece of property; to dispose of it, or own it, or enjoy it. But that he has a general right, that the right, say, to own property cannot be a right which is taken away from him. Id. at 7. Regarding the second sentence: There are basically two ways in which government limits property rights. One, by the police power, that is the regulatory power of the state, the authority of the state to do virtually anything in furtherance of the common welfare in the nature of regulation of property, so long as property rights are not denied entirely. That is what we refer to here when we talk about the police power. Id. Mr. Jenkins further explained the first two sentences of Section Four as follows: The first sentence of the Section spells out various attributes of the right to property. This right is then limited by the two exceptions listed in the second sentence. This has the effect of making respect for property rights the rule and  reasonable statutory restrictions and the reasonable exercise of the police power the exception. Unlike present law, this does not mean that a statutory restriction or an exercise of the police power is constitutional merely because it does not amount to a taking of property. The first two sentences would have been meaningless if that had been the intent, because the remainder of the Section protects citizens when their property is actually taken. On the contrary, the purpose of this language is to limit the authority of the Legislature and to limit the exercise of the police power to a standard of reasonableness. Moreover, since the rule is protection of property rights and the exception is regulation of those rights, the burden of proof must shift from the owner of property to its regulator. In other words, it is not the duty of the property owner to demonstrate that a given regulatory scheme is wholly arbitrary; instead, it is the responsibility of the state to show its reasonableness. This is not to say that any manner of regulatory activity is necessarily invalid. Price fixing, licensing laws, land-use laws, zoning, fire code, building restrictions and countless other measures are all constitutionally permissible, provided they meet the standard of reasonableness and do not violate other constitutional safeguards, such as due process and equal protection. Moreover, even restrictions which do meet the standard of reasonableness on their face must still be administered in a reasonable manner. Even without language such as that in the second sentence, a number of other states use the due process clause in their own constitutions to scrutinize legislation with greater care than the federal courts and to invalidate laws with greater frequency. However, the new standard established in the second sentence of the Section provides an additional basis for the courts to inquire into the question of whether state action affecting property rights has a rational basis. Id. at 20-21. (Emphasis added) It is readily apparent that regulation of property need only be reasonablealthough the state must show it is reasonable rather than relying on a presumption of reasonableness as is done in Fourteenth Amendment cases. Further, the transcript statements by Mr. Jenkins show that the concern addressed by the section was that of Socialism or excessive regulation or ownership of property by the government. Delegates also believed that both public and private entities authorized by law to expropriate have abused that power. Finally, delegates expressed the fear that there were few constitutional safeguards against the expropriation or nationalization and business concerns which has occurred in other countries. Id. at 19. The last two paragraphs of Section Four deal with expropriation in contrast to the first paragraph's concern with regulation. See, Hargrave, The Declaration of Rights of the Louisiana Constitution of 1974, 35 L.L.R. 1, 13 (1974). It is in the subject matter of expropriation that the Louisiana Constitution gives far-reaching new protections. Protections regarding expropriations cannot be said to limit the government's reasonable regulation of contraband. It is true that Section Four provides that personal effects, other than contraband, shall never be taken [expropriated]. Forfeiture is not expropriation, however. Neither is the taking of contraband prohibited. Professor Hargrave correctly understood the last sentence of the second paragraph of Section Four as regards the forfeiture or taking of contraband when he noted: The government's power to classify items as contraband and to take them without compensation is of course limited by the provision that the right to own property is subject to reasonable restrictions and that property cannot be taken without due process. Id. at 20. As we've already seen, the taking of contraband under La.R.S. 32:1550 is both reasonable and comports with due process. No right, therefore, to have proof beyond a reasonable doubt in forfeiture proceedings can be gleaned from La. Const. Art. I, § 4. Rather, the burden of proof in a forfeiture proceeding is the civil standard of preponderance of the evidence. Insofar as Manuel required proof beyond a reasonable doubt in forfeiture proceedings, I would expressly overrule that case.