Columbus, OH – On Thursday, The Buckeye Institute filed an amicus brief in Culley v. Marshall, calling on the U.S. Supreme Court to protect the due process rights of Americans against unconstitutional civil asset forfeiture laws. 

“When asked why he robbed banks, Willie Sutton famously replied, ‘[b]ecause that’s where the money is,’ expressing a common-sense economic truth that financial incentives influence behavior,” said Jay R. Carson, senior litigator at The Buckeye Institute. “Alabama’s civil asset forfeiture law, and others like it, create a powerful financial incentive to abuse state police powers—in violation of due process—to seize valuable property on the mere suspicion of criminal wrongdoing.”

In its brief, The Buckeye Institute cites numerous scholarly studies that show that the financial incentives associated with civil asset forfeiture laws—which in this case allows law enforcement agencies to keep 100 percent of the value of seized property—not only drive law enforcement priorities, but that the actions that police and persecutors employ to maximize their revenue “disproportionately burden poor and minority communities, and those least able to protect their property rights.” As such, Alabama’s civil asset forfeiture statute cannot be squared with due process protections enshrined in the U.S. Constitution. 

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UPDATE: On May 9, 2024, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that “In civil forfeiture cases involving personal property, the Due Process Clause requires a timely forfeiture hearing but does not require a separate preliminary hearing.” Justice Neil M. Gorsuch and Justice Sonia Sotomayor quoted extensively from The Buckeye Institute’s amicus brief. Proof that the facts and legal arguments The Buckeye Institute put forward in its amicus briefs are influencing the highest court in the land and that The Buckeye Institute’s brief provides a road map on how to fix civil asset forfeiture.