Opinion ID: 779364
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: The Mathews v. Eldridge Inquiry

Text: 52 The Supreme Court has set forth three factors to weigh in deciding whether the demands of the Due Process Clause are satisfied where the government seeks to maintain possession of property before a final judgment is rendered. See Mathews, 424 U.S. at 335, 96 S.Ct. 893. These factors should be used to evaluate the adequacy of process offered in post-seizure, pre-judgment deprivations of property in civil forfeiture proceedings. Cf. James Daniel Good Real Prop., 510 U.S. at 53, 114 S.Ct. 492 (finding that the Mathews inquiry provides guidance in determining whether to tolerate an exception to the rule requiring pre-deprivation notice and hearing). The factors include (1) the private interest affected; (2) the risk of erroneous deprivation through the procedures used and the value of other safeguards; and (3) the government's interest.
53 The first factor to be considered in the Mathews inquiry is the private interest affected by the official action. Mathews, 424 U.S. at 335, 96 S.Ct. 893. The deprivation of real or personal property involves substantial due process interests. See James Daniel Good Real Prop., 510 U.S. at 53-54, 114 S.Ct. 492 (recognizing that Good's right to maintain control over his home, and to be free from governmental interference, is a private interest of historic and continuing importance); id. at 81, 114 S.Ct. 492 (Thomas, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part) (agreeing with the majority that [i]ndividual freedom finds tangible expression in property rights); Doehr, 501 U.S. at 11, 111 S.Ct. 2105 ([T]he property interests that attachment affects are significant.); Fuentes, 407 U.S. at 70-71, 92 S.Ct. 1983 (holding that loss of household furniture and appliances warrants a pre-deprivation hearing). 54 The particular importance of motor vehicles derives from their use as a mode of transportation and, for some, the means to earn a livelihood. An individual has an important interest in the possession of his [or her] motor vehicle, which is often his [or her] most valuable possession. Lee, 538 F.2d at 31; see also Perry v. McDonald, 280 F.3d 159, 174 (2d Cir. 2001) (noting that an individual's interest in driving a vehicle represents a due process concern); Coleman v. Watt, 40 F.3d 255, 260-61 (8th Cir.1994) (stating, in the course of applying the Mathews factors to impoundment of a car under state law, that [a]utomobiles occupy a central place in the lives of most Americans, providing access to jobs, schools, and recreation as well as to the daily necessities of life); Stypmann v. City & County of San Francisco, 557 F.2d 1338, 1342-43 (9th Cir. 1977) (finding a substantial interest in the uninterrupted use of an automobile, upon which the owner's ability to make a living may depend); cf. Justice Robert H. Jackson, The Task of Maintaining Our Liberties: The Role of the Judiciary, 39 A.B.A.J. 961, 963 (1953) (My equal right to drive an automobile may be only a claim to use of property, but it concerns my personal freedom as well.). 55 Other considerations as well bear on the importance of the private interest at stake. One is the availability of hardship relief under the applicable law. Cf. Dixon v. Love, 431 U.S. 105, 113, 97 S.Ct. 1723, 52 L.Ed.2d 172 (1977) (noting the availability, under an Illinois statute, of provisions for hardship and for holders of commercial licenses, who are those most likely to be affected by the deprival of driving privileges). Under the New York City Civil Administrative Code, no provision is made for situations in which the seizure and retention of a vehicle would cause particular hardship. See N.Y.C.Code § 14-140 (authorizing seizure of all property used as an instrumentality of crime). 23 Another consideration is the length of deprivation, which increases the weight of an owner's interest in possessing the vehicle. See Logan, 455 U.S. at 434, 102 S.Ct. 1148 (noting the Court's concern under Mathews for the importance of the private interest and the length or finality of the deprivation). As noted above, the City retains seized vehicles for months or sometimes years before the merits of a forfeiture action are addressed. Finally, the importance of the claimant's possessory interest post-seizure and pre-judgment is not diminished by the likelihood that the government will eventually prevail in forfeiture proceedings. See James Daniel Good Real Prop., 510 U.S. at 62, 114 S.Ct. 492 (Fair procedures are not confined to the innocent. The question before us is the legality of the seizure, not the strength of the Government's case.); Fuentes, 407 U.S. at 87, 92 S.Ct. 1983 (The right to be heard does not depend upon an advance showing that one will surely prevail at the hearing.). 56 For these reasons, we cannot agree with the district court's cursory assessment of the interest at stake based solely on its observation that the seizure of the vehicles occurred in a jurisdiction that abounds in mass transit facilities. Krimstock, 2000 WL 1702035, at . The seizure authority under the statute extends not only to cars registered in New York City, but to any found there; it also encompasses commercial as well as noncommercial vehicles. If the named class members serve as any indication, motor vehicle use is often found among those for whom mass transportation is inadequate. Valerie Krimstock, for example, states that the seizure of her vehicle hindered her from traveling from her residence in the Bronx to her job in North Tarrytown and from visiting her daughter who suffers from mental illness and lives in Pennsylvania. The seizure and retention of Clarence Walters' vehicle made it difficult, he reports, to reach his construction job sites — some located in areas of Long Island or New Jersey inaccessible by mass transit-and as a consequence he lost a certain amount of work. James Webb, a 77-year-old retiree, states that the seizure and retention of his vehicle made it difficult for him and his wife to see their doctors and to visit friends, and prevented him from driving his granddaughter to school. 57 B. The Risk of Erroneous Deprivation Through the Procedures Used and the Probable Value of Other Safeguards 58 The second factor to be considered under the Mathews test is the risk of an erroneous deprivation of such interest through the procedures used, and the probable value, if any, of additional or substitute procedural safeguards. Mathews, 424 U.S. at 335, 96 S.Ct. 893. The particular deprivation with which we are concerned here is the City's post-seizure, pre-judgment retention of plaintiffs' vehicles. The district court concluded that the procedures used by the City — a warrantless arrest and the ultimate forfeiture proceeding-adequately protect plaintiffs against erroneous deprivation of their vehicles. Krimstock, 2000 WL 1702035, at -. We are troubled by this conclusion. Neither the arresting officer's unreviewed probable cause determination nor a court's ruling in the distant future on the merits of the City's forfeiture claim can fully protect against an erroneous deprivation of a claimant's possessory interest as his or her vehicle stands idle in a police lot for months or years. 59 Nevertheless, we conclude that, on balance, the second Mathews factor weighs in favor of the City. We acknowledge that the risk of erroneous seizure and retention of a vehicle is reduced in the case of a DWI owner-arrestee, because a trained police officer's assessment of the owner-driver's state of intoxication can typically be expected to be accurate. See People v. Bennett, 238 A.D.2d 898, 899, 660 N.Y.S.2d 772, 774 (4th Dep't 1997) (holding that the court properly instruct[ed] jurors that the police officers were experts in determining a person's state of intoxication). 60 Yet the City's victory on the second Mathews factor is a narrow one. As noted earlier, the risk of erroneous deprivation that is posed to innocent owners is a substantial one. Moreover, our inquiry into the risk of error is partly informed by the City's pecuniary interest in the outcome of § 14-140 proceedings. As the Supreme Court has observed, greater procedural safeguards are of particular importance... where the Government has a direct pecuniary interest in the outcome of the proceeding. James Daniel Good Real Prop., 510 U.S. at 55-56, 114 S.Ct. 492; cf. United States v. Funds Held in the Name or for the Benefit of Wetterer, 210 F.3d 96, 110 (2d Cir.2000) (We have previously observed the government's `virtually unchecked use of the civil forfeiture statutes and the disregard for due process that is buried in those statutes.') (quoting United States v. Statewide Auto Parts, Inc., 971 F.2d 896, 905 (2d Cir.1992)). 24 Under the City's Administrative Code, property found to have been used as a means of committing crime or employed in aid or in furtherance of crime may, at the discretion of the police commissioner, be used or converted to use for the purpose of the [police] department or any city, state or federal agency. N.Y.C.Code § 14-140(e)(2); see also Hyne, 147 Misc.2d at 780, 557 N.Y.S.2d at 248 (noting that the forfeiture law's remedial purposes include the fact that revenue is generated and applied toward the cost of law enforcement). 25 61 The Supreme Court has expressed additional concern when, as here, the erroneous deprivation cannot be recompensed by the claimant's prevailing in later proceedings: 62 [T]he availability of a postseizure hearing may be no recompense for losses caused by erroneous seizure. Given the congested civil dockets in federal courts, a claimant may not receive an adversary hearing until many months after the seizure. And even if the ultimate judicial decision is that the claimant was an innocent owner, or that the Government lacked probable cause, this determination, coming months after the seizure, would not cure the temporary deprivation that an earlier hearing might have prevented. 63 James Daniel Good Real Prop., 510 U.S. at 56, 114 S.Ct. 492 (quoting Doehr, 501 U.S. at 15, 111 S.Ct. 2105); cf. Shapiro, 424 U.S. at 629, 96 S.Ct. 1062 (noting that where irreparable injury may result from a deprivation of property pendente lite, the Due Process Clause requires ... an opportunity for some kind of predeprivation or prompt post-deprivation hearing at which some showing of the probable validity of the deprivation must be made). In contrast, for example, to benefits for which full retroactive relief is awarded if a plaintiff ultimately prevails, see, e.g., Mathews, 424 U.S. at 340, 96 S.Ct. 893, an owner cannot recover the lost use of a vehicle by prevailing in a forfeiture proceeding. The loss is felt in the owner's inability to use a vehicle that continues to depreciate in value as it stands idle in the police lot. Cf. Property Clerk v. Duck Jae Lee, 183 Misc.2d 360, 363, 702 N.Y.S.2d 792, 795 (Sup.Ct.N.Y.Co.2000) (permitting a secured lender to intervene in a vehicle forfeiture proceeding brought against a DWI arrestee who had defaulted on monthly car payments, so that the value of the subject car will not continue to depreciate if plaintiff lets the action languish). 64 In sum, because we recognize that the risk of erroneous deprivation in the context of DWI owner-arrestees is in many cases a reduced one, we conclude that the second Mathews factor weighs in favor of the City. The scales are very nearly in equipoise, however, in light of the comparably greater risk of error that is posed to innocent owners, the City's direct pecuniary interest in the outcome of forfeiture proceedings, and the lack of adequate recompense for losses occasioned by erroneous seizures of vehicles. C. The Government's Interest 65 The third Mathews factor examines the Government's interest, including the function involved and the fiscal and administrative burdens that the additional or substitute procedural requirement would entail. Mathews, 424 U.S. at 335. The City argues that it has three principal interests in continuing to retain the vehicles post-seizure and pre-judgment. 66 The first, and the most compelling among those the City has adduced, is to prevent a vehicle from being sold or destroyed before a court can render judgment in future forfeiture proceedings. The City cites Calero-Toledo v. Pearson Yacht Leasing Co., 416 U.S. 663, 94 S.Ct. 2080, 40 L.Ed.2d 452 (1974), for the proposition that when property is easily transportable to another jurisdiction, the City must retain custody pending resolution of the forfeiture proceedings. The Supreme Court, indeed, recognized that immediate seizure was necessary in Calero-Toledo because otherwise the yacht at issue might have disappeared had the Government given advance warning of the forfeiture action. James Daniel Good Real Prop., 510 U.S. at 57, 114 S.Ct. 492. We note initially that the Puerto Rican statute under which the yacht in Calero-Toledo was seized and forfeited provided that notice of the seizure must be served upon interested parties within ten days following the seizure and that those parties have fifteen days following service within which to challenge the seizure by serving a complaint on the confiscating officer. The complaint, filed in the Superior Court, shall be heard without subjection to docket. 34 P.R. Laws Ann. § 1722(a) (repealed 1988). In Calero-Toledo, the yacht was automatically forfeited when no challenge was made to the seizure within fifteen days after service of the notice of seizure. Calero-Toledo, 416 U.S. at 668, 94 S.Ct. 2080. 67 The critical difference between Calero-Toledo and the present case is that plaintiffs' vehicles have already been seized and are in the hands of the police. Just as with real property seized by the government in forfeiture proceedings, there is no danger that these vehicles will abscond. See James Daniel Good Real Prop., 510 U.S. at 56-57, 114 S.Ct. 492 (discussing the need for seizure of movable property). Plaintiffs seek a determination only of whether continued retention of their vehicles by the City is valid and justified. Continued retention may be unjustified when other means of restraint would accomplish the City's goals. See id. at 59, 114 S.Ct. 492 (In the usual case, the Government ... has various means, short of seizure, to protect its legitimate interests in forfeitable property). To ensure that the City's interest in forfeitable vehicles is protected, claimants could post bonds, or a court could issue a restraining order to prohibit the sale or destruction of the vehicle. See id. at 58-59, 114 S.Ct. 492 (suggesting judicial means to ensure that real property is not sold or destroyed pendente lite ). 26 The need to prevent forfeitable property from being sold or destroyed during the pendency of proceedings does not necessarily justify continued retention of all vehicles when other means of accomplishing those goals are available. A bond is in some respects a superior form of security because it entails no storage costs or costs of sale. 68 A second reason offered by the City for maintaining custody of vehicles prior to judgment in forfeiture proceedings is that the City's in rem jurisdiction over the vehicles depends upon its unbroken possession from seizure to judgment. The Supreme Court has held, however, that possession of a res during the entire course of the proceedings is unnecessary to preserve jurisdiction. See Republic Nat'l Bank of Miami v. United States, 506 U.S. 80, 88-89, 113 S.Ct. 554, 121 L.Ed.2d 474 (1992) (We hold that, in an in rem forfeiture action, the Court of Appeals is not divested of jurisdiction by the prevailing party's transfer of the res from the district.). Noting that the in rem rules had their origin in admiralty law, where a court established its jurisdiction by seizure, the Supreme Court found that the court must have actual or constructive control of the res when an in rem forfeiture is initiated. Id. at 87, 113 S.Ct. 554 (emphasis added); cf. The Palmyra, 25 U.S. (12 Wheat.) 1, 10, 6 L.Ed. 531 (1827) (Story, J.) (Whenever a stipulation [bond] is taken in an admiralty suit, for the property subjected to legal process and condemnation, the stipulation is deemed a mere substitute for the thing itself, and the stipulators liable to the exercise of all those authorities on the part of the Court, which it could properly exercise if the thing itself were still in its custody.). 27 69 The final interest adduced by the City is the need to prevent the offending res — here, the seized vehicle — from being used as an instrumentality in future acts of driving while intoxicated. Of course, at the time of initial seizure and retention the offending res  is only an allegedly offending res, inasmuch as the owner's or owner-arrestee's misconduct in connection with the instrumentality has yet to be established in either a criminal or a civil proceeding. Moreover, although the Supreme Court has found that certain situations of executive urgency, James Daniel Good Real Prop., 510 U.S. at 60, 114 S.Ct. 492, call for action that dispenses with normal due process guarantees, this case does not fall within that narrow category. In defining situations of executive urgency, the Court has provided the examples of summary seizures during wartime, seizures of contaminated food, and, formerly, the collection of taxes when the very existence of the government depended upon them. See id. at 59-60, 114 S.Ct. 492. To take one example, the Court allowed the seizure, without prior judicial process, of forty-seven barrels of poultry from a Chicago food storage warehouse after city inspectors determined they were putrid, decayed, poisonous, or infected in such a manner as to render it unsafe or unwholesome for human food. N. Am. Cold Storage Co. v. City of Chicago, 211 U.S. 306, 308, 29 S.Ct. 101, 53 L.Ed. 195 (1908). The threat to the public was immediate, and the spoiled poultry, like contraband, was unlikely to be used for some other legitimate purpose. Motor vehicles, in contrast, present no such threat and maintain their usefulness. Cf. Austin v. United States, 509 U.S. 602, 621, 113 S.Ct. 2801, 125 L.Ed.2d 488 (1993) (`There is nothing even remotely criminal in possessing an automobile.') (quoting One 1958 Plymouth Sedan v. Pennsylvania, 380 U.S. 693, 85 S.Ct. 1246, 14 L.Ed.2d 170 (1965)). In James Daniel Good Real Property, for example, the Supreme Court found that enforcement of the drug forfeiture laws did not present a plausible claim of urgency strong enough to dispense with normal due process guarantees. James Daniel Good Real Prop., 510 U.S. at 61, 114 S.Ct. 492. 70 Even if driving while intoxicated were considered a matter of executive urgency, the response the City has chosen, requiring the impoundment of vehicles until forfeiture proceedings are terminated, is ill-suited to address the urgency. While initial seizure of a vehicle serves the constructive purpose of keeping an individual from driving in an inebriated condition, that purpose often loses its basis in urgency once the individual has regained sobriety on the morrow. 28 Furthermore, the remedy of continued impoundment leaves the alleged offender free to drive while intoxicated in any other vehicle when the opportunity presents itself, while depriving some potentially innocent owners of the often indispensable benefits of daily access to their vehicles. 71 Finally, the City's asserted interest in removing dangerous drivers from the road is weakened if it extends not to all vehicles seized in connection with DWI arrests, but only to those that might yield an attractive price at auction. The November 1988 Forfeiture Guide produced by the Legal Bureau of the City of New York Police Department instructs that [c]ertain categories of property do not warrant forfeiture litigation due to their small value or the near impossibility of a successful outcome, including [n]on-owner operated vehicles ten years old or older, unless, inter alia, the vehicle has a special value, e.g., an expensive import. 1988 Forfeiture Guide, at 24-25. We do not know whether this passage reflects current policy, but we note that the City's interest in safety cannot be paramount if it seeks to remove from the road only a lucrative subset of the vehicles seized from intoxicated drivers. 72 D. Balancing the Mathews v. Eldridge Factors 73 Balancing the Mathews factors, we find that the Fourteenth Amendment guarantee that deprivations of property be accomplished only with due process of law requires that plaintiffs be afforded a prompt post-seizure, pre-judgment hearing before a neutral judicial or administrative officer to determine whether the City is likely to succeed on the merits of the forfeiture action and whether means short of retention of the vehicle can satisfy the City's need to preserve it from destruction or sale during the pendency of proceedings. 74 In James Daniel Good Real Property, the Supreme Court concluded that to seize real property without notice and hearing, the Government must show that less restrictive measures — i.e., a lis pendens, restraining order, or bond — would not suffice to protect the Government's interests in preventing the sale, destruction, or continued unlawful use of the real property. James Daniel Good Real Prop., 510 U.S. at 62, 114 S.Ct. 492; cf. Statewide Auto Parts, 971 F.2d at 905 (urging district courts whenever possible ... [to] favor less drastic measures, such as occupancy agreements, bonds, receiverships, lis pendens, or other means for preserving the status quo ante seizure until the criminality underlying the claimed forfeiture can be established in the context of a proper criminal proceeding with its attendant constitutional protections to the accused). 29 Here, once the vehicles have been seized, and concerns for establishing jurisdiction and immediate prophylactic custody are satisfied, we find that the Due Process Clause requires that claimants be given an early opportunity to test the probable validity of further deprivation, including probable cause for the initial seizure, and to ask whether other measures, short of continued impoundment, would satisfy the legitimate interests of the City in protecting the vehicles from sale or destruction pendente lite. Whether the vehicle is in the hands of the police the morning after it has been seized, as in this case, or whether James Daniel Good's property is still in his hands the morning before the marshals arrive with a warrant, the question is what reason the government has for refusing to exercise some means short of continued retention after seizure to guarantee that property will be available to satisfy a civil forfeiture judgment. 75 E. Inapplicability of United States v. $8,850 and the Speedy Trial Test 76 The City argues that the Mathews v. Eldridge balancing test is displaced by the Supreme Court's decision to apply the speedy trial test, and not the Mathews inquiry, in examining the constitutionality of any delay in the return of property subject to future civil forfeiture proceedings. See United States v. $8,850, 461 U.S. 555, 103 S.Ct. 2005, 76 L.Ed.2d 143 (1983) (applying the speedy trial test set forth in Barker v. Wingo, 407 U.S. 514, 92 S.Ct. 2182, 33 L.Ed.2d 101 (1972), in finding that an eighteen-month delay in filing a customs forfeiture action did not violate constitutional due process guarantees). 77 We disagree. As discussed in Section III.A above, plaintiffs' claim does not concern the speed with which civil forfeiture proceedings themselves are instituted or conducted. Instead, plaintiffs seek a prompt post-seizure opportunity to challenge the legitimacy of the City's retention of the vehicles while those proceedings are conducted. The application of the speedy trial test presumes prior resolution of any issues involving probable cause to commence proceedings and the government's custody of the property or persons pendente lite, leaving only the issue of delay in the proceedings. The impoundment of property — or the incarceration of a criminal defendant — certainly increases the hardship worked by any delay. The Constitution, however, distinguishes between the need for prompt review of the propriety of continued government custody, on the one hand, and delays in rendering final judgment, on the other. 30