Culley v. Marshall

Background

Halima Culley and Lena Sutton each loaned a car to someone who was later arrested in Alabama on drug charges. Police seized both cars under an Alabama civil forfeiture law that allowed seizure “incident to an arrest” so long as the State promptly filed forfeiture cases. Alabama filed complaints 10 and 13 days after the seizures. While the state forfeiture cases were pending, Culley and Sutton sued in federal court under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, saying keeping their cars without a preliminary retention hearing violated their due process rights.

Reasoning

The Court considered whether the Due Process Clause requires a separate preliminary hearing to decide if the State may keep seized personal property before the formal forfeiture hearing. Citing United States v. $8,850 and United States v. Von Neumann, the Court held that due process requires a timely post-seizure forfeiture hearing but does not require a separate preliminary retention hearing. The majority relied on precedents, historical practice, and practical concerns about protecting property that could be moved or destroyed. The Court noted owners can press $8,850-style timeliness arguments and that Mathews v. Eldridge and Fourth Amendment analogies do not compel a different result.

Real world impact

The ruling means owners of seized cars do not have a constitutional right to an earlier adversarial retention hearing nationwide; instead, the key protection is a timely forfeiture hearing. States remain free to enact quicker or additional procedures, and property owners can challenge unreasonable delays under the existing timeliness test.

Dissents or concurrances

Justice Gorsuch (concurring) stressed broader questions about modern forfeiture practices and revenue incentives. Justice Sotomayor (dissenting) warned of documented abuses, financial incentives for seizures, and disproportionate harm to the poor, and would have left courts to apply a context-specific balancing test.