by Scott McClallen
The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Wayne County violated the rights of Detroiters by not offering prompt court hearings within two weeks of their vehicles being seized.
The Center Square reported the lawsuit in 2020 when The Institute for Justice filed a class action suit challenging the program on behalf of Detroiters whose vehicles were seized without receiving a hearing.
Wayne County seized the vehicle of plaintiff Robert Reeves and held it for more than six months. The seizure took place because a coworker allegedly stole something from a construction job site Reeves was leaving.
“My car was seized and held for more than six months,” Reeves said in a statement. “Because of today’s ruling, the next person the county targets will have a real opportunity to go to court and challenge the seizure of their car. And they won’t have to wait months or years to get it.”
Wayne County regularly seizes and retains vehicles for months or longer without providing an opportunity for a hearing to challenge the seizure.
The court’s opinion says it usually takes “at least four months, on top of any previous delays (usually an additional four to six months)” for a car owner to get in front of a judge after their car has been seized.
The court held “that Wayne County violated [the] Constitution when it seized plaintiffs’ personal vehicles – which were vital to their transportation and livelihoods – with no timely process to contest the seizure. We further hold that Wayne County was required to provide an interim hearing within two weeks to test the probable validity of the deprivation.”
The court also said “that the county seized the vehicles in order to obtain proceeds from fees” and not for any health or public safety concerns.
“Does this sound like a legitimate way of cleaning up Wayne County?” Judge Amul Thapar wrote in a concurring opinion. “Or does it sound like a money-making scheme that preys on those least able to fight it? To ask the question is to answer it.”
IJ Senior Attorney Wesley Hottot welcomed the ruling.
“This is vindication but it solves just one of the many problems with Wayne County’s unconstitutional car-seizure program,” Hottot said in a statement. “We aren’t going anywhere until this program is scrapped for good.”
Because the case was before the Sixth Circuit on interlocutory appeal for a single claim, it will now return to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan for litigation of the plaintiffs’ other claims. Those claims include the forfeiture scheme violates the Fourth Amendment and the county’s routine forfeiture of vehicles from innocent owners like the three plaintiffs are unconstitutional.
The decision came down as the U.S. Supreme Court is set to hear arguments in the upcoming term in Culley v. Marshall, a case in which the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals held vehicle owners have no right to a prompt, post-seizure hearing.
IJ filed an amicus brief in that case on behalf of Stephanie and others, urging the Court to require hearings in cases of vehicle seizures nationwide.
“The Wayne County forfeiture machine takes in over 1,000 cars every year,” IJ Attorney Kirby Thomas West said in a statement. “Now, Detroit car owners can at least rest assured that they will have a speedy opportunity to challenge a seizure when they find themselves victims of this forfeiture machine.”
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Scott McClallen is a staff writer covering Michigan and Minnesota for The Center Square. A graduate of Hillsdale College, his work has appeared on Forbes.com and FEE.org. Previously, he worked as a financial analyst at Pepsi. In 2021, he published a book on technology and privacy. He co-hosts the weekly Michigan in Focus podcast.
