Court Opinion

ID: 9648102
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 14:02:36.173637+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:56.248424
License: Public Domain

GRANT, Justice,
dissenting.
Rosalinda Romero owns a small home in Dallas, which she inherited from her mother. Romero works as a short-order cook and earns $6.00 per hour. There are no allegations that this home was derived from drug trafficking or purchased with drug trafficking money. The basis of the forfeiture was the sale of two ounces of cocaine to Romero’s boyfriend in her presence. According to the undisputed affidavits, except for this transaction, neither the house nor the lot had ever been a tool of drug trafficking, center of drug distribution, drug laboratory site, or the site of any drug cultivation.
The State claims to be enforcing a contract. This contract was made under the threat of taking all of her home instead of one-half. This is an unconscionable agreement. Forfeitures are not favored by the law. Even before United States v. Halper, 490 U.S. 435, 109 S.Ct. 1892, 104 L.Ed.2d 487 (1989), the forfeiture could not be so extreme that it subjects the offender to a sanction overwhelmingly disproportionate to the damage he has caused.
I respectfully dissent.