Civil Asset Forfeiture

C.J. Ciaramella | 7.23.2024 3:00 PM

Detroit police can no longer seize cars through civil asset forfeiture unless they can show that the car was used for trafficking drugs, the Michigan Supreme Court ruled Monday.

The court held that Detroit resident Stephanie Wilson's 2006 Saturn Ion was not subject to the state's forfeiture laws because there was no evidence when police seized it in 2019—most notably no drugs—indicating she was using it to move and sell narcotics. It is not enough to merely claim that a car was near a suspected drug crime or that a passenger possessed drugs for personal use.

"To permit forfeiture on the basis of only some of the elements—for example, using a vehicle to transport an individual to a location to sell or receive illicit property without transportation of or an intent to transport that property, or transportation of property without an intent that it be sold or received—would fail to give meaning to the entirety of the statute and its plain language," the court wrote.

The ruling is the second recent court decision limiting the asset forfeiture powers of Wayne County, which encompasses Detroit, and the second one specifically involving Wilson's Saturn Ion.

Last year, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit unanimously ruled that Detroit's practice of seizing people's cars for months at a time before giving........

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