Opinion ID: 1882296
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: pre-1989 amendment

Text: Prior to the 1989 amendment, Article I Section 4 of the Louisiana Constitution as enacted in 1974 read in pertinent part: Section 4: 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 police power. Property shall never 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....Personal effects, other than contraband, shall never be taken. With respect to contraband as presented in the 1974 Louisiana Constitution, Professor Hargrave noted: Property considered as `contraband' is exempted from the requirement that personal effects can never be taken. The record provides no special definition of contraband. The term is used in the ordinary sense of property the possession of which is forbidden by law. The historical evolution of the term indicates that no compensation need be given when goods classed as contraband are taken. The government's power to classify items as contraband and to take them without compensation is subject to `reasonable' restrictions and that property cannot be taken without due process. Hargrave, The Declaration of Rights of the Louisiana Constitution of 1974, 35 La. Law Review 1, 19-20 (1974). The first significant case dealing with forfeiture after the convention is State v. 1971 Green GMC Van, 354 So.2d 479 (La.1977). In this case we recognized that Louisiana traditionally looked with disfavor upon forfeitures. Id. at 484. This court held that the forfeiture statute was unconstitutional. In making this determination, we determined that forfeiture statutes are penal in nature and thus must be decided under criminal law precepts. Id. at 484-487. In State v. Manuel, 426 So.2d 140 (La.1983), this Court upheld the constitutionality of the drug forfeiture statute in place at the time, La. R.S. 32:1550, and allowed the forfeiture of two vehicles used in the transportation of illicit drugs. Two classifications of contraband were recognized: 1) Contraband per se, which are things that are illegal to possess and are therefore not susceptible of ownership, and 2) Derivative contraband, which are things that may be forfeited because they are instrumentalities of a crime, but which are not ordinarily illegal to possess. We held that the term contraband used in the phrase personal effects, other than contraband, shall never be taken means derivative contraband because an article which is contraband per se is not susceptible of ownership. Id. at 144. Accordingly, a forfeiture statute does not violate Article I, Section 4 of the 1974 Louisiana Constitution merely because it authorizes the forfeiture of personal effects which constitute derivative contraband. Following Manuel, this court decided State v. Spooner, 520 So.2d 336 (La.1988). In that case, the central issue was whether the property owner could be required to prove in a forfeiture proceeding that money found on his person at the time of his arrest was not contraband. In Spooner this court reviewed another forfeiture statute, La.R.S. 32:1550, and the statutory presumption contained therein. The statutory presumption required the claimant to prove by clear and convincing evidence that money found in close proximity to illegal narcotics was not forfeitable derivative contraband. We ruled that this statutory provision created an unconstitutional mandatory presumption which violated Article I, Section 4, and the federal and state constitutional rights to due process of law. In Spooner, we concluded that forfeiture of money was permissible, but the state had the burden to prove that the money was derivative contraband. In concluding that the property owner could not be required to disprove a presumption that his property was contraband, but that, instead, the state had to bear the burden of proving that the seized property was contraband, we relied on the protections which the 1974 Louisiana Constitution extended to the right to own and control private property. As such, requiring that the state has the burden of proof as to derivative contraband was necessary to avoid infringement upon constitutional due process and private property rights. Therefore, defining a forfeiture proceeding as by nature an attempt to deprive the defendant of his property as a punishment, we have held that the property owner is entitled in that proceeding to substantially the same protection as an accused is afforded in any criminal case. The burden of proving that the defendant's property was derivative contraband must be on the state. As this court said in State v. 77,014.00 Dollars, 607 So.2d 576 (La. App. 3 Cir.1992), writ denied, 612 So.2d 61 (La.1993), the legislature's response to Spooner was the enactment of Louisiana's present forfeiture law.