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BENNIS V.

MICHIGAN
No. 94-8729
March 4, 1996
Substantive Due Process
FACTS:
Petitioner, Tina Bennis, was a joint owner with her husband of an automobile. Detroit police
arrested her husband, John Bennis, after catching him engaged in a sexual act with a prostitute in the
automobile while it was parked on a Detroit city street. He was eventually convicted of gross
indecency. The State then sued both spouses, to have the car declared a public nuisance and abated
as such under 600.3801 and 600.3825 in Michigan's Compiled Laws. Petitioner defended against the
abatement of her interest in the car since when she entrusted her husband to use the car, she did not
know that he would use it to violate Michigan's indecency law. The Wayne County Circuit Court
rejected her defense and declared the car a public nuisance, ordering the car's abatement. The trial
court judge recognized the discretion he has and took into account the couple's ownership of another
automobile so technically they would not be left without transportation. He has the authority to order
the payment of one-half of the sale proceeds to the innocent co-owner but he declined to order such a
division because of the age and value of the car.
The Court of Appeals reversed, holding that jurisprudence prevented the State from abating
petitioner's interest absent proof that she knew to what end the car would be used. But alternatively,
the judge ruled that the conduct in question did not qualify as a public nuisance because only one
occurrence was shown and there was no evidence of payment for the sexual act.
The Supreme Court reversed the CA and reinstated the abatement. It concluded that the
Bennis vehicle was an abatable nuisance. The court ruled that Michigan does not need to prove that
the owner knew or agreed that her vehicle would be used in a manner that would violate the laws
when she entrusted it to another user, in order to abate it. With regard to the constitutional challenges
regarding due process that the petitioner raised, the court assumed that petitioner did not know of or
consent to the misuse of the Bennis car, and based on jurisprudence, the failure to provide an
innocent-owner defense was without constitutional consequence. The court noted that an owner's
interest may not be abated only when a vehicle is used without the owner's consent.
ISSUES:
Whether or not the abatement scheme has deprived petitioner of her interest in the forfeited car
without due process, in violation of the 14th Amendment, or has taken her interest for public use
without compensation, in violation of the 5th Amendment as incorporated with the 14th Amendment.
HELD:
Petitioner claims that she was denied due process, claiming that she was entitled to contest
the abatement for she did not know her husband would use it to violate Michigan's indecency law. A
long line of cases holds 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.
Jurisprudence emphasizes that the thing is here primarily considered as the offender; or rather the
offence is attached primarily to the thing. Cases often arise where the property of the owner is
forfeited on account of the fraud, neglect, or misconduct of those entrusted with its possession, care,
and custody, even when the owner is otherwise without fault and it has always been held that the acts
of the possessors bind the interest of the owner whether he be innocent or guilty. Furthermore, it has
been consistently held that is not a violation of the due process clause. The court elaborated that it is
too firmly fixed in the punitive and remedial jurisprudence of the country to be now displaced.
Prepared by: Jo-Anne D. Coloquio

In the case at bar as similar to the past cases, the petitioner did not know that her car would be used
in an illegal activity that would subject it to forfeiture. But the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth
Amendment does not protect her interest against forfeiture by the government. Petitioner invokes a
passage from Calero-Toledo, that "it would be difficult to reject the constitutional claim of an owner
who proved not only that he was uninvolved in and unaware of the wrongful activity, but also that he
had done all that reasonably could be expected to prevent the proscribed use of his property", but
then this comment was merely an obiter dictum. Petitioner further argues that we should in effect
overrule the long line of cases by importing a culpability requirement from cases having at best a
tangential relation to the "innocent owner" doctrine in forfeiture cases. She cites Foucha v.
Louisiana, that a criminal defendant may not be punished for a crime if he is found to be not guilty,
but the Foucha case did not discuss, let alone overrule, the line of cases that support the courts
stand. She also argues that our holding in Austin v. United States, that the Excessive Fines
Clause limits the scope of civil forfeiture judgments, "would be difficult to reconcile with any rule
allowing truly innocent persons to be punished by civil forfeiture." But in the Austin case, it was
stated that forfeiture serves, at least in part, to punish the owner, forfeiture proceedings are subject to
the limitations of the Eighth Amendment's prohibition against excessive fines. It did not deal with
the validity of the "innocent-owner defense," other than to point out that if a forfeiture statute allows
such a defense, the defense is additional evidence that the statute itself is disciplinary in motive and
as a deterrent, but the judge has discretion to consider alternatives in abating.
Forfeiture of property prevents illegal uses "both by preventing further illicit use of the property and
by imposing an economic penalty, thereby rendering illegal behavior unprofitable." The law builds a
secondary defense against a forbidden use and precludes evasions by dispensing with the necessity
of judicial inquiry as to collusion between the wrongdoer and the alleged innocent owner.
Petitioner also claims that the forfeiture in this case was a taking of private property for
public use in violation of the Takings Clause of the 5th Amendment, incorporate into the 14th
Amendment. But if the forfeiture proceeding here in question did not violate the Fourteenth
Amendment, the property in the automobile was transferred by virtue of that proceeding from
petitioner 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. Petitioners claims depend on an argument that the Michigan forfeiture
statute is unfair and this has considerable appeal. But the State seeks to deter illegal activity and the
Bennis automobile, facilitated and was used in criminal activity. Both the trial court and the
Michigan Supreme Court followed jurisprudence, so the decision is affirmed.

Prepared by: Jo-Anne D. Coloquio

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