THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, March 5, 1996 TAG: 9603050205
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A6 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium: 73 lines
The Supreme Court gave the government more power to confiscate property linked to crime, upholding the seizure of a Michigan woman's car that had been used by her husband for sex with a prostitute.
Three justices called Monday's ruling blatantly unfair. ``Fundamental fairness prohibits the punishment of innocent people,'' Justice John Paul Stevens wrote for them.
But the court's 5-4 majority, led by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, expanded police power to seize property owned, at least in part, by innocent people.
The ruling could make some prosecutors more aggressive in seeking to enforce forfeiture laws as one crime-fighting tool.
But the decision will have no immediate impact on the federal government's war on drugs. Federal law requiring forfeiture in drug cases excepts property used without an owner's knowledge.
``A long and unbroken 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,'' Rehnquist said.
Justices Sandra Day O'Connor, Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Ruth Bader Ginsburg joined his opinion.
Justices John Paul Stevens, David H. Souter, Stephen G. Breyer and Anthony M. Kennedy dissented.
Tina Bennis sued over the 1988 forfeiture of a car she jointly owned with her husband, John.
Bennis had pleaded guilty to gross indecency after he was arrested in Detroit. Police saw him parked in the couple's 1977 Pontiac sedan receiving oral sex from a prostitute.
Wayne County prosecutors, seeking to get tough on prostitution, successfully sought forfeiture of the car under a 1925 anti-nuisance law.
Tina Bennis had argued that forcing her to give up her share in the car, for which the Bennises had paid $600 about a month before it was seized, violated her due-process rights and amounted to a governmental taking without the constitutionally required compensation.
The nation's highest court rejected both contentions. ILLUSTRATION: IN OTHER ACTION
In other matters Monday, the court:
Ruled that the government need not pay two Agent Orange makers
who settled a lawsuit with Vietnam veterans over the defoliant's
alleged effects on health.
The justices said the government never promised reimbursement to
defense contractors for any monetary damages they paid in
personal-injury lawsuits.
Rejected the appeal of two former Massachusetts high school
students and their parents who objected to an ``indecent'' program
on sex education and AIDS.
Refused to hold a U.S. labor union, the International
Longshoremen's Association, legally responsible for a threatened
1990 boycott by Japanese unions that harmed two Florida stevedoring
companies.
Agreed to use an Ohio case to decide whether motorists stopped
for traffic violations must be told they are free to go before
police ask whether they are carrying illegal items such as drugs.
Turned away the appeal of an Iowa county found to have violated
an employee's religious freedom by firing him for holding prayer
meetings at work.
KEYWORDS: SUPREME COURT RULING by CNB