| Concurrence [ Thomas ] | Syllabus | Dissent [ Stevens ] | Concurrence [ Ginsburg ] | Dissent [ Kennedy ] | Opinion [ Rehnquist ] |
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NOTE: Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be released, as is being done in connection with this case, at the time the opinion is issued. The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader. See United States v. Detroit Lumber Co., 200 U.S. 321, 337.
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
Syllabus
BENNIS v.
certiorari to the supreme court of michigan
No.
Petitioner was a joint owner, with her husband, of an automobile in which her husband engaged in sexual activity with a prostitute. In declaring the automobile forfeit as a public nuisance under Michigan's statutory abatement scheme, the trial court permitted no offset for petitioner's interest, notwithstanding her lack of knowledge of her husband's activity. The Michigan Court of Appeals reversed, but was in turn reversed by the State Supreme Court, which concluded, inter alia, that Michigan's failure to provide an innocent owner defense was without federal constitutional consequence under this Court's decisions.
Held: The forfeiture order did not offend the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment or the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment. Pp. 4-12.
(a) Michigan's abatement scheme has not deprived petitioner of her interest in the forfeited car without due process. Her claim that she was entitled to contest the abatement by showing that she did not know that her husband would use the car to violate state law is defeated by a long and unbroken line of cases in which this Court has held that an owner's interest in property may be forfeited by reason of the use to which the property is put even though the owner did not know that it was to be put to such use. See, e.g., Van Oster v. Kansas, 272 U.S. 465, 467-468, and Calero Toledo v. Pearson Yacht Leasing Co., 416 U.S. 663, 668, 683; Foucha v. Louisiana, 504 U.S. 71, 80, and Austin v. United States, 509 U. S. ___, ___, distinguished. These cases are too firmly fixed in the country's punitive and remedial jurisprudence to be now displaced. Cf. J. W. Goldsmith, Jr. Grant Co. v. United States, 254 U.S. 505, 511. Pp. 4-11.
(b) Michigan's abatement scheme has not taken petitioner's property for public use without compensation. Because the forfeiture proceeding did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment, her property in the automobile was transferred by virtue of that proceeding to the State. The government may not be required to compensate an owner for property which it has already lawfully acquired under the exercise of governmental authority other than the power of eminent domain. See, e.g., United States v. Fuller, 409 U.S. 488, 492. P. 11.
Rehnquist, C. J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which O'Connor, Scalia, Thomas, and Ginsburg, JJ., joined. Thomas, J., and Ginsburg, J., filed concurring opinions. Stevens, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Souter and Breyer, JJ., joined. Kennedy, J., filed a dissenting opinion.