Opinion ID: 1839728
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: department of law enforcement

Text: In Department of Law Enforcement, we were able to uphold the constitutionality of Florida's forfeiture act only by imposing numerous restrictions and safeguards on the use of the act in order to protect a citizen's property from arbitrary action by the government. In discussing the act we declared: The Act raises numerous constitutional concerns that touch upon many substantive and procedural rights protected by the Florida Constitution. In construing the Act, we note that forfeitures are considered harsh exactions, and as a general rule they are not favored either in law or equity. Therefore, this Court has long followed a policy that it must strictly construe forfeiture statutes. 588 So.2d at 961. The major thrust of our holding was that in order to comply with constitutional due process requirements, the government must strictly observe a citizen's constitutional protections when invoking the drastic remedy of forfeiture of a citizen's property. In addition to expressly holding that the Fourth Amendment applies to forfeiture attempts by the government, we specifically explained: In those situations where the state has not yet taken possession of the personal property that it wishes to be forfeited, the state may seek an ex parte preliminary hearing. At that hearing, the court shall authorize seizure of the personal property if it finds probable cause to maintain the forfeiture action. Id. at 965. We conclude that the government's unauthorized and warrantless seizure, absent exigent circumstances not established here, clearly violated the constitutional safeguards we recognized in Department of Law Enforcement. The government did not seek a warrant or an ex parte preliminary hearing here in order to secure a neutral magistrate's determination of probable cause. The government just seized the property, thereby putting the property owner and any others claiming an interest in the property in the position of having to take affirmative action against the government in order to protect their rights. This is the very antithesis of the cautious procedure we mandated in Department of Law Enforcement. We simply cannot accept the government's position that it may act at anytime, anywhere, and regardless of the existence of exigent circumstances, or a change in ownership or possession, to seize a citizen's property once believed to have been used in illegal activity, without securing the authorization of a neutral magistrate.