Opinion ID: 779364
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Role of the Fourteenth Amendment in Civil Forfeiture

Text: 27 The government's seizure and retention of property under civil forfeiture statutes, in the absence of a meaningful hearing at a meaningful time, raise serious due process concerns under the Fourteenth Amendment. See James Daniel Good Real Prop., 510 U.S. at 62, 114 S.Ct. 492 (holding that, absent exigent circumstances, the Due Process Clause requires the Government to afford notice and a meaningful opportunity to be heard before seizing real property subject to civil forfeiture); Fuentes, 407 U.S. at 80, 92 S.Ct. 1983 (holding, in a case involving state prejudgment replevin statutes that permitted seizure of chattels without a prior opportunity to be heard, that it is fundamental that the right to notice and an opportunity to be heard must be granted at a meaningful time and in a meaningful manner) (quotation marks omitted). 28 The fundamental right to notice and a meaningful hearing at a meaningful time has been recognized in many different contexts. See, e.g., James Daniel Good Real Prop., 510 U.S. at 43, 114 S.Ct. 492 (seizure of real property under federal forfeiture law); Connecticut v. Doehr, 501 U.S. 1, 111 S.Ct. 2105, 115 L.Ed.2d 1 (1991) (state ex parte attachment procedures); Memphis Light, Gas & Water Div. v. Craft, 436 U.S. 1, 98 S.Ct. 1554, 56 L.Ed.2d 30 (1978) (termination of municipal utility service); N. Ga. Finishing, Inc. v. Di-Chem, Inc., 419 U.S. 601, 95 S.Ct. 719, 42 L.Ed.2d 751 (1975) (prejudgment garnishment of bank account); Fuentes, 407 U.S. at 67, 92 S.Ct. 1983 (state prejudgment replevin statutes); Sniadach, 395 U.S. at 337, 89 S.Ct. 1820 (state wage-garnishment procedure). Due process is inevitably a fact-intensive inquiry. Doehr, 501 U.S. at 10, 111 S.Ct. 2105 ([D]ue process, unlike some legal rules, is not a technical conception with a fixed content unrelated to time, place and circumstances.) (quotation marks omitted). The timing and nature of the required hearing will depend on appropriate accommodation of the competing interests involved. Logan v. Zimmerman Brush Co., 455 U.S. 422, 434, 102 S.Ct. 1148, 71 L.Ed.2d 265 (1982) (quotation marks omitted). 29
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
36 Our concern that plaintiffs be provided an early opportunity to test the propriety of the City's retention of their vehicles, after seizure pursuant to N.Y.C.Code § 14-140 and prior to any eventual civil forfeiture judgment, is heightened by several factors. These factors include the temporal gap that typically exists between seizure of the vehicle and the forfeiture proceeding, the inability of innocent owners to challenge promptly the City's retention of their vehicles pendente lite, and the inadequacy of other suggested remedies for providing prompt post-seizure review under New York's administrative and civil codes.
37 N.Y.C.Code § 14-140 and the applicable rules leave a significant temporal gap between the moment a vehicle is seized and the time the City commences forfeiture proceedings. Although it is possible for the City to initiate a forfeiture action earlier, it need not bring such an action until twenty-five days after a claim is made for the vehicle. 38-A R.C.N.Y. § 12-36(a) (If a timely demand is made for the return of the property before the forfeiture proceeding is instituted, such proceeding shall be brought no later than ... within 25 days after the date of demand.). 13 If no demand is made, the Property Clerk may initiate the action at its discretion. In the present case, forfeiture proceedings were commenced, at the earliest, three weeks after seizure of a vehicle, and, at the latest, well over two months after seizure. Thus, there typically exists a significant period after seizure and before the filing of the forfeiture action when the City is not held responsible for the legality of the warrantless seizure or the continued retention of the vehicle. The period between the seizure and the holding of a hearing in the forfeiture action is, of course, considerably longer. 14 It can take months or even years. 38 Many state forfeiture statutes, unlike N.Y.C.Code § 14-140, provide an early opportunity to challenge the governmental authority's probable cause for seizing property or the legitimacy of its retaining seized property during the pendency of proceedings. Florida's contraband forfeiture statute is one example. In upholding the Florida statute in a case involving police seizure of a vehicle from a public place, the U.S. Supreme Court observed that, although the police had not needed to obtain a warrant to seize the vehicle, the statute required that `the person entitled to notice is notified at the time of the seizure ... that there is a right to an adversarial preliminary hearing after the seizure to determine whether probable cause exists to believe that such property has been or is being used in violation of the Florida Contraband Forfeiture Act.' Florida v. White, 526 U.S. 559, 562 n. 2, 119 S.Ct. 1555, 143 L.Ed.2d 748 (1999) (quoting Fla. Stat. § 932.703(2)(a)). The Florida statute further provides: 39 Seizing agencies shall make a diligent effort to notify the person entitled to notice of the seizure. Notice provided by certified mail must be mailed within 5 working days after the seizure and must state that a person entitled to notice may request an adversarial preliminary hearing within 15 days after receiving such notice.... The seizing agency shall set and notice the hearing, which must be held within 10 days after the request is received or as soon as practicable thereafter. 40 Fla. Stat. § 932.703(2)(a); see also Cochran v. Harris, 654 So.2d 969, 972 (Fla.Dist. Ct.App.1995) (holding that a delay of twenty-three days beyond the ten-day limit for a hearing under § 932.703 violated the claimants' right to due process); cf. Ariz. Rev.Stat. § 13-4310(B) (providing that, upon timely application by an owner of or interest holder in property threatened with forfeiture, the court may issue an order to show cause to the seizing agency for a hearing on the sole issue of whether probable cause for forfeiture of the property then exists); Cal. Health & Safety Code § 11488.4(h) (providing that [i]f there is an underlying or related criminal action, a defendant may move for the return of the property [threatened with civil forfeiture] on the grounds that there is not probable cause to believe that the property is forfeitable....). Nothing like the procedural safeguards contained in the Florida contraband forfeiture act and similar state statutes is built into the New York forfeiture law. 41 In addition, many state statutes afford avenues of interim relief for claimants who are adversely affected by seizure and retention of property. For example, the Florida contraband forfeiture statute provides that if the court determines that probable cause exists to seize property, the court shall order the property restrained by the least restrictive means to protect against disposal, waste, or continued illegal use of such property pending disposition of the forfeiture proceeding. Fla. Stat. § 932.703(2)(d). These means include a bond or other adequate security equivalent to the value of the property. Id.; cf. Ariz.Rev.Stat. § 13-4306(G) (An owner of property seized for forfeiture may obtain the release of the seized property by posting... a surety bond or cash....); Cal. Health & Safety Code § 11492(c) (providing for various remedies to preserve the status quo pendente lite, including a surety bond or undertaking to preserve the property interests of the interested parties); N.J. Stat. Ann. § 2C:64-3(g) (providing that persons with an interest in property seized for forfeiture, except defendants prosecuted in connection with the seized property, may, after posting a bond, secure release of the property pending the forfeiture action). Again, no protections for a claimant's practical interests in seized property are provided for under the New York forfeiture law.
42 With respect to innocent owners, the City's authority to seize property may be broader than its authority to cause the forfeiture of the property. In the due process context, the Supreme Court has shown special concern for the risk of erroneous deprivation posed to innocent owners. See James Daniel Good Real Prop., 510 U.S. at 55, 114 S.Ct. 492. 15 The impact of N.Y.C.Code § 14-140 on innocent owners is vividly illustrated by the predicament of plaintiff Sandra Jones, whose Plymouth van, which she had lent to her estranged husband, was seized in connection with her husband's arrest on drug and weapon charges. Although these charges were later dismissed, Ms. Jones was deprived of her vehicle for some ten months while continuing to make monthly auto payments on the vehicle. Ms. Jones was given no early opportunity to test the probable validity of the City's continued impoundment of her vehicle. 43 The forfeiture provision operates against those persons who shall not be deemed to be the lawful claimant to the property that has been seized by the police department. N.Y.C.Code § 14-140(e)(1). 16 The statute identifies two principal groups of those who are not lawful claimant[s] and whose property therefore is forfeitable. One is the person who has used the property as a means of committing crime or employed [it] in aid or in furtherance of crime; the other is the person who permitted or suffered the same to be used or employed. Id. 17 44 Thus, the seizure provision authorizes the Property Clerk to take custody, following seizure, of all property or money suspected of having been used as a means of committing crime, N.Y.C.Code § 14-140(b), without regard to whether or not an owner who took no part in the crime permitted or suffered the vehicle to be used as an instrumentality of the crime. 18 A statute that authorizes the police to seize property to which the government has not established a legal right or claim, and that on its face contains no limitation of forfeiture liability for innocent owners, raises substantial constitutional concerns. 19 Because plaintiffs in this action seek only a prompt and effective means to test the legitimacy of and justification for the City's retention of their vehicles following the seizure but prior to the forfeiture proceeding, we have no occasion to rule on the constitutionality of the seizure provision itself. Nevertheless, the scope of the police seizure authority granted under § 14-140(b), together with the City's direct pecuniary interest in the outcome of the proceeding, James Daniel Good Real Prop., 510 U.S. at 55-56, 114 S.Ct. 492, further convinces us of the need to provide a prompt opportunity for independent and neutral judicial review of the probable validity of the City's retention of vehicles pendente lite. 20 45 In sum, there is a heightened potential for erroneous retention where an arrestee, whether for DWI or some other suspected criminal conduct, is not the owner of the seized vehicle. The plight of innocent owners, as exemplified by the experience of plaintiff Sandra Jones, persuades us that an early retention hearing following seizure under N.Y.C.Code § 14-140 is constitutionally required.
46 In prosecuting vehicle forfeiture actions under N.Y.C.Code § 14-140, the City has consistently opposed motions for interim relief in the form of a retention hearing. For example, in its Memorandum of Law opposing a motion for an immediate retention hearing in the case of Property Clerk v. Ali, the City stated that under the CPLR there is no basis upon which defendant can even make this motion. Likewise, the CPLR does not provide for such a hearing. Defendant has circumvented the traditional rules of civil procedure by asking this court to entertain, and plaintiff to defend, against a motion that has no legal basis and a hearing that would clearly be improper under the rules. 47 Memorandum of Law in Support of Plaintiff's Opposition to an Immediate Retention Hearing, at 12, Property Clerk v. Ali, No. 413408/99 (Sup.Ct.N.Y.Co.). In Ali, as here, the City maintained that due process was satisfied by a resolution of the merits at the eventual civil forfeiture hearing. 48 Nevertheless, defendants here suggest that plaintiffs may assert their constitutional rights and challenge the City's continued retention of their vehicles through the procedural means of a Request for Judicial Intervention (RJI) or an Article 78 proceeding brought under New York state law. We disagree. Under current law, any review of the legitimacy of the City's continued retention of a vehicle would likely come, at the earliest, months after its seizure. This delay is a result, first, of the City's need to initiate forfeiture proceedings. Assuming that a claimant requests the return of the property immediately upon seizure by the police, the City has twenty-five days in which to initiate proceedings. Only after a civil forfeiture proceeding is commenced and process is served can an owner submit a RJI. See 22 N.Y. Comp.Codes R. & Regs. § 202.6(a). Along with the RJI, a claimant files a request for a preliminary conference. See id. § 202.12(a) (If the action has not been assigned to a judge, the party shall file a request for judicial intervention together with the request for a preliminary conference.). Under the New York rules, a preliminary conference is held no later than forty-five days from the request unless the court orders otherwise. Id. § 202.6(b). The rules do not explicitly permit a determination of probable cause or the legitimacy of continued retention at the preliminary conference, or even provide for the taking of evidence, indicating that, at most, the preliminary conference may serve (as plaintiffs suggest) to set a future date for a probable cause hearing. 21 Under the current rules, therefore, any determination of probable cause for the initial seizure or the legitimacy of continued deprivation might come sometime within three months after the seizure, or perhaps much later. 22 The Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments demand a more expeditious determination of a vehicle owner's rights. 49 The City also suggests that an Article 78 proceeding under New York state law is available to claimants to redress any constitutional grievances. Requiring plaintiffs to resort to an Article 78 proceeding, however, would place the onus on each plaintiff to bring a separate civil action in order to force the City to justify its seizure and retention of a vehicle. This civil action provides the [r]elief previously obtained by writs of certiorari to review, mandamus or prohibition. N.Y. C.P.L.R. 7801. To petition for mandamus, a claimant would have the burden of showing a clear legal right to the release of his or her vehicle. See Ass'n of Surrogates & Sup. Ct. Reporters v. Bartlett, 40 N.Y.2d 571, 574, 388 N.Y.S.2d 882, 884, 357 N.E.2d 353 (1976) ([P]etitioners' success in this proceeding in the nature of mandamus requires a showing of a clear legal right to the relief sought.) (quotation marks omitted). 50 The City cites Grinberg v. Safir as proof that relief is currently available in an Article 78 proceeding. To challenge the City's forfeiture proceeding and retention of his vehicle, the petitioner in Grinberg filed an Article 78 action and, with it, a request for a temporary restraining order. Although the court held argument only two days after the action was filed, it denied the temporary restraining order, observing that [l]ikely inconvenience is not proof of immediate and irreparable injury, Grinberg, 181 Misc.2d at 447 n. 1, 694 N.Y.S.2d at 320 n. 1, and eventually decided the case in favor of the City more than two months later. 51 In sum, we conclude that the suggested remedy of an Article 78 proceeding does not provide a prompt and effective means for claimants to challenge the legitimacy of the City's retention of their vehicles pendente lite. Cf. Fuentes, 407 U.S. at 80, 92 S.Ct. 1983 (finding unconstitutional a Pennsylvania statute that allows a post-seizure hearing if the aggrieved party shoulders the burden of initiating one). Furthermore, inasmuch as plaintiffs claim that the federal Constitution requires the state court to offer a remedy that is currently not available under state or local law, this constitutional challenge need not proceed through the state court before it reaches the federal courts. See Kraebel v. N.Y. City Dep't of Hous. Pres. & Dev., 959 F.2d 395, 404-06 (2d Cir.1992) (addressing the claim that an Article 78 proceeding provided all the process plaintiff was due, and finding that [i]t is well-established that [42 U.S.C.] § 1983 generally allows plaintiffs with federal or constitutional claims the right to sue in federal court without first resorting to state judicial remedies); cf. Logan, 455 U.S. at 432, 102 S.Ct. 1148 (Each of our due process cases has recognized, either explicitly or implicitly, that because minimum procedural requirements are a matter of federal law, they are not diminished by the fact that the State may have specified its own procedures that it may deem adequate for determining the preconditions to adverse official action.) (quotation marks and alterations omitted).