CALERO-TOLEDO ET AL. v. PEARSON YACHT LEASING CO.
No. 73-157
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
Argued January 7, 1974—Decided May 15, 1974
416 U.S. 663
No. 73-157. Argued January 7, 1974—Decided May 15, 1974
Lynn R. Coleman argued the cause for appellants. With him on the brief were Francisco de Jesus-Schuck, Attorney General of Puerto Rico, and Miriam Naviera de Rodon, Solicitor General.
Gustavo A. Gelpi argued the cause and filed a brief for appellee.*
MR. JUSTICE BRENNAN delivered the opinion of the Court.
The question presented is whether the Constitution is violated by application to appellee, the lessor of a yacht, of Puerto Rican statutes providing for seizure and forfeiture of vessels used for unlawful purposes when (1) the yacht was seized without prior notice or hearing after allegedly being used by a lessee for an unlawful purpose, and (2) the appellee was neither involved in nor aware of the act of the lessee which resulted in the forfeiture.
*Solicitor General Bork, Assistant Attorney General Petersen, Deputy Solicitor General Frey, Gerald P. Norton, Jerome M. Feit, and Joseph S. Davies, Jr., filed a brief for the United States as amicus curiae urging reversal.
On November 6, 1972, appellee filed this suit, seeking a declaration that application of
A three-judge District Court,6 relying principally upon Fuentes v. Shevin, 407 U. S. 67 (1972), held that the failure of the statutes to provide for preseizure notice and hearing rendered them constitutionally defective. 363 F. Supp. 1337, 1342–1343 (PR 1973). Viewing United States v. United States Coin & Currency, 401 U. S. 715 (1971), as having effectively overruled our prior decisions that the property owner‘s innocence has no constitutional significance for purposes of forfeiture, the District Court further declared that the Puerto Rican statutes, insofar as applied to forfeit appellee‘s interest in the yacht, unconstitutionally deprived it of property without just compensation. 363 F. Supp., at 1341-1342. Appellants were accordingly enjoined from enforcing the statutes “insofar as they deny the owner or person in charge of property an opportunity for a hearing due to the lack of notice, before the seizure and forfeiture of its property and insofar as a penalty is imposed upon innocent parties.” Id., at 1343-1344. We noted probable jurisdiction. 414 U. S. 816 (1973). We reverse.
I
Although the parties consented to the convening of the three-judge court and hence do not challenge our juris-
In Stainback v. Mo Hock Ke Lok Po, 336 U. S. 368 (1949), this Court held that enactments of the Territory of Hawaii were not “State statute[s]” for purposes of Judicial Code § 266, the predecessor to
“While, of course, great respect is to be paid to the enactments of a territorial legislature by all courts as it is to the adjudications of territorial courts, the predominant reason for the enactment of Judicial Code § 266 does not exist as respects territories. This reason was a congressional purpose to avoid unnecessary interference with the laws of a sovereign state. In our dual system of government, the position of the state as sovereign over matters not ruled by the Constitution requires a deference to state
legislative action beyond that required for the laws of a territory. A territory is subject to congressional regulation.” 336 U. S., at 377-378 (footnotes omitted) (emphasis added).
Similar reasoning—that the purpose of insulating a sovereign State‘s laws from interference by a single judge would not be furthered by broadly interpreting the word “State“—led the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit some 55 years ago to hold § 266 inapplicable to the laws of the Territory of Puerto Rico. Benedicto v. West India & Panama Tel. Co., 256 F. 417 (1919).
Congress, however, created the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico after Benedicto was decided. Following the Spanish-American War, Puerto Rico was ceded to this country in the Treaty of Paris, 30 Stat. 1754 (1898). A brief interlude of military control was followed by congressional enactment of a series of Organic Acts for the government of the island. Initially these enactments established a local governmental structure with high officials appointed by the President. These Acts also retained veto power in the President and Congress over local legislation. By 1950, however, pressures for greater autonomy led to congressional enactment of
These significant changes in Puerto Rico‘s governmental structure formed the backdrop to Judge Magruder‘s observations in Mora v. Mejias, 206 F. 2d 377 (CA1 1953):
“[I]t may be that the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico—‘El Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico’ in the Spanish version—organized as a body politic by the people of Puerto Rico under their own constitution, pursuant to the terms of the compact offered to them in Pub. L. 600, and by them accepted, is a State within the meaning of
28 U. S. C. § 2281 . The preamble to this constitution refers to the Commonwealth . . . which ‘in the exercise of our natural rights, we [the people of Puerto Rico] now create within our union with the United States of America,’ Puerto Rico has thus not become a State in the federal Union like the 48 States, but it would seem to have become a State within a common and accepted meaning of the word. Cf. State of Texas v. White, 1868, 7 Wall. 700, 721. . . . It is a political entity created by the act and with the consent of the people of Puerto Rico and joined in union with the United States of America under the terms of the compact.“A serious argument could therefore be made that the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico is a State within the intendment and policy of
28 U. S. C. § 2281 . . . . If the constitution of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico is really a ‘constitution‘—as the Congress says it is, 66 Stat. 327, and not just another OrganicAct approved and enacted by the Congress, then the question is whether the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico is to be deemed ‘sovereign over matters not ruled by the Constitution’ of the United States and thus a ‘State’ within the policy of 28 U. S. C. § 2281 , which enactment, in prescribing a three-judge federal district court, expresses ‘a deference to state legislative action beyond that required for the laws of a territory’ [Stainback v. Mo Hock Ke Lok Po, 336 U. S., at 378], whose local affairs are subject to congressional regulation.” 206 F. 2d, at 387-388. (footnote omitted).
Lower federal courts since 1953 have adopted this analysis and concluded that Puerto Rico is to be deemed “sovereign over matters not ruled by the Constitution” and thus a State within the policy of the Three-Judge Court Act. See Mora v. Mejias, 115 F. Supp. 610 (PR 1953);9 Marin v. University of Puerto Rico, 346 F.
“[A]pplication of the doctrine of abstention is particularly appropriate in a case involv[ing] the construction and validity of a statute of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. For a due regard for the status of that Commonwealth under its compact with the Congress of the United States dictates, we believe, that it should have the primary opportunity through its courts to determine the intended scope of its own legislation and to pass upon the validity of that legislation under its own constitution as well as under the Constitution of the United States.” 266 F. Supp. 401, 405 (1966).
Although the question of Puerto Rico‘s status under
While still of the view that
II
Appellants challenge the District Court‘s holding that the appellee was denied due process of law by the omis-
Fuentes reaffirmed, however, that, in limited circumstances, immediate seizure of a property interest, without an opportunity for prior hearing, is constitutionally permissible. Such circumstances are those in which
“the seizure has been directly necessary to secure an important governmental or general public interest. Second, there has been a special need for very prompt action. Third, the State has kept strict control over its monopoly of legitimate force: the person initiating the seizure has been a government official responsible for determining, under the standards of a narrowly drawn statute, that it was necessary and justified in the particular instance.” Id., at 91.
The considerations that justified postponement of notice and hearing in those cases are present here. First, seizure under the Puerto Rican statutes serves significant governmental purposes: Seizure permits Puerto Rico to assert in rem jurisdiction over the property in order to conduct forfeiture proceedings,13 thereby fostering the public interest in preventing continued illicit use of the property and in enforcing criminal sanctions. Second, preseizure notice and hearing might frustrate the interests served by the statutes, since the property seized—as here, a yacht—will often be of a sort that could be removed to another jurisdiction, destroyed, or concealed, if advance warning of confiscation were given. And finally, unlike the situation in Fuentes, seizure is not initiated by self-interested private parties; rather, Commonwealth officials determine whether seizure is appropriate under the provisions of the Puerto Rican statutes.14 In these circumstances, we hold that this case
III
Appellants next argue that the District Court erred in holding that the forfeiture statutes unconstitutionally authorized the taking for government use of innocent parties’ property without just compensation. They urge that a long line of prior decisions of this Court establish the principle that statutory forfeiture schemes are not rendered unconstitutional because of their applicability to the property interests of innocents, and further that United States v. United States Coin & Currency, 401 U. S. 715 (1971), did not—contrary to the opinion of the District Court—overrule those prior precedents sub silentio. We agree. The historical background of forfeiture statutes in this country and this Court‘s prior decisions sustaining their constitutionality lead to that conclusion.
At common law the value of an inanimate object directly or indirectly causing the accidental death of a
In addition, English Law provided for statutory forfeitures of offending objects used in violation of the customs and revenue laws—likely a product of the confluence and merger of the deodand tradition and the belief that the right to own property could be denied the wrongdoer. Statutory forfeitures were most often enforced under the in rem procedure utilized in the Court of Exchequer to forfeit the property of felons. See 3 W. Blackstone, Commentaries *261-262; C. J. Hendry Co. v. Moore, 318 U. S. 133, 137-138 (1943).
Deodands did not become part of the common-law tradition of this country. See Parker-Harris Co. v. Tate, 135 Tenn. 509, 188 S. W. 54 (1916). Nor has forfeiture
Despite this proliferation of forfeiture enactments, the innocence of the owner of property subject to forfeiture has almost uniformly been rejected as a defense. Thus, Mr. Justice Story observed in The Palmyra, 12 Wheat. 1 (1827), that a conviction for piracy was not a prerequi
“It is well known, that at the common law, in many cases of felonies, the party forfeited his goods and chattels to the crown. The forfeiture did not, strictly speaking, attach in rem; but it was a part, or at least a consequence, of the judgment of conviction. . . . [T]he [Crown‘s right to the goods and chattels] attached only by the conviction of the offender. But this doctrine never was applied to seizures and forfeitures, created by statute, in rem, cognizable on the revenue side of the Exchequer. The thing is here primarily considered as the offender, or rather the offence is attached primarily to the thing; and this, whether the offence be malum prohibitum, or malum in se . . . . [T]he practice has been, and so this Court understand the law to be, that the proceeding in rem stands independent of, and wholly unaffected by any criminal proceeding in personam.” Id., at 14-15.
This rationale was relied upon to sustain the statutory forfeiture of a vessel found to have been engaged in piratical conduct where the innocence of the owner was “fully established.” United States v. Brig Malek Adhel, 2 How. 210, 238 (1844). The vessel was “treated as the offender,” without regard to the owner‘s conduct, “as the only adequate means of suppressing the offence or wrong, or insuring an indemnity to the injured party.” Id., at 233.24
Dobbins‘s Distillery v. United States, 96 U. S. 395 (1878), is an illustration of how severely this principle has been applied. That case involved a lessee‘s violations of the revenue laws which led to the seizure of real and personal property used in connection with a distillery. The lessor‘s assertions of innocence were rejected as a defense to a federal statutory forfeiture of his entire property, for the offense “attached primarily to the distillery, and the real and personal property used in connection with the same, without any regard whatsoever to the personal misconduct or responsibility of the owner, beyond what necessarily arises from the fact that he leased the property to the distiller, and suffered it to be occupied and used by the lessee as a distillery.” Id., at 401; see United States v. Stowell, 133 U. S. 1, 13-14 (1890).
Decisions reaching the same conclusion have continued into this century. In Goldsmith-Grant Co. v. United States, 254 U. S. 505 (1921), it was held that the federal tax-fraud forfeiture statute did not deprive an innocent owner of his property in violation of the
“In breaches of revenue provisions some forms of property are facilities, and therefore it may be said, that Congress interposes the care and responsibility
of their owners in aid of the prohibitions of the law and its punitive provisions, by ascribing to the property a certain personality, a power of complicity and guilt in the wrong. In such case there is some analogy to the law of deodand by which a personal chattel that was the immediate cause of the death of any reasonable creature was forfeited. To the superstitious reason to which the rule was ascribed, Blackstone adds ‘that such misfortunes are in part owing to the negligence of the owner, and therefore he is properly punished by such forfeiture.’ . . . “But whether the reason for [the forfeiture] be artificial or real, it is too firmly fixed in the punitive and remedial jurisprudence of the country to be now displaced.” Id., at 510-511.
See also United States v. One Ford Coupe Automobile, 272 U. S. 321 (1926) (Brandeis, J.); General Motors Acceptance Corp. v. United States, 286 U. S. 49 (1932) (Cardozo, J.). In Van Oster v. Kansas, 272 U. S. 465 (1926), the Court upheld, against a
Plainly, the Puerto Rican forfeiture statutes further the punitive and deterrent purposes that have been found sufficient to uphold, against constitutional challenge, the application of other forfeiture statutes to the property of innocents.25 Forfeiture of conveyances that have been
“(a) The following shall be subject to forfeiture to the United States and no property right shall exist in them:
“(4) All conveyances, including aircraft, vehicles, or vessels, which are used, or are intended for use, to transport, or in any manner to facilitate the transportation, sale, receipt, possession, or concealment of property described in paragraph (1) or (2), except that—
“(A) no conveyance used by any person as a common carrier in the transaction of business as a common carrier shall be forfeited under the provisions of this section unless it shall appear that the owner or other person in charge of such conveyance was a consenting party or privy to a violation of this subchapter or subchapter II of this chapter; and
“(B) no conveyance shall be forfeited under the provisions of this section by reason of any act or omission established by the owner thereof to have been committed or omitted by any person other than such owner while such conveyance was unlawfully in the possession of a person other than the owner in violation of the criminal laws of the United States, or of any State. . . .”
See n. 1, supra. The exceptions contained in subparagraphs (A) and (B) of the federal statute, although having no specific counterpart in
To the extent that such forfeiture provisions are applied to lessors, bailors, or secured creditors who are innocent of any wrongdoing, confiscation may have the desirable effect of inducing them to exercise greater care in transferring possession of their property. Cf. United States v. One Ford Coach, 307 U. S. 219, 238-241 (1939) (Douglas, J., dissenting).
Against the legitimate governmental interests served by the Puerto Rican statute and the long line of this Court‘s decisions which squarely collide with appellee‘s assertion of a constitutional violation, the District Court opposed our decision in United States v. United States Coin & Currency, 401 U. S. 715 (1971). This reliance was misplaced. In Coin & Currency, the Government claimed that the privilege against self-incrimination could not be asserted in a forfeiture proceeding under
This is not to say, however, that the “broad sweep”
But in this case appellee voluntarily entrusted the lessees with possession of the yacht, and no allegation has been made or proof offered that the company did all that it reasonably could to avoid having its property put to an unlawful use. Cf. Goldblatt v. Town of Hempstead, 369 U. S. 590, 596 (1962). The judgment of the District Court is
Reversed.
MR. JUSTICE STEWART joins Parts I and II of the Court‘s opinion, but, for the reasons stated in the dis
MR. JUSTICE WHITE, with whom MR. JUSTICE POWELL joins, concurring.
I join the Court‘s opinion, and agree that there was no constitutional necessity under Fuentes v. Shevin, 407 U. S. 67 (1972), or any other case in this Court to accord the owner-lessor of the yacht a hearing in the circumstances of this case. I add, however, that the presence of important public interests which permits dispensing with a preseizure hearing in the instant case, is only one of the situations in which no prior hearing is required. See Mitchell v. W. T. Grant Co., ante, p. 600; Arnett v. Kennedy, ante, p. 134 (WHITE, J., concurring).
MR. JUSTICE DOUGLAS, dissenting in part.
While I agree that Puerto Rico is a State for purposes of the three-judge court jurisdiction, I dissent on the merits.
The discovery of marihuana on the yacht took place May 6, 1972. The seizure of the yacht took place on July 11, 1972—over two months later. In view of the long delay in making the seizure where is that “special need for very prompt action” which we emphasized in Fuentes v. Shevin, 407 U. S. 67, 91? The Court cites instances of exigent circumstances—seized poisoned food, dangerous drugs, failure of a bank, and the like. But they are inapt.
Fuentes v. Shevin involved a contest between debtor and creditor and a resolution of private property rights not implicated in an important governmental purpose. Here important governmental purposes are involved. As
“First, in each case, the seizure has been directly necessary to secure an important governmental or general public interest. Second, there has been a special need for very prompt action. Third, the State has kept strict control over its monopoly of legitimate force: the person initiating the seizure has been a government official responsible for determining, under the standards of a narrowly drawn statute, that it was necessary and justified in the particular instance. Thus, the Court has allowed summary seizure of property to collect the internal revenue of the United States, to meet the needs of a national war effort, to protect against the economic disaster of a bank failure, and to protect the public from misbranded drugs and contaminated food.” Id., at 91-92.
Postponement of notice and hearing until after seizure of the vessel apparently was not needed here, as the District Court held. Yet after that two-month delay, forfeiture of the vessel is ordered without notice to the owner and without just compensation for the taking. On those premises this is the classic case of lack of procedural due process.
The owner on the record before us was wholly innocent of knowing that the lessee was using the vessel illegally. To analogize this case to the old cases of forfeiture of property of felons is peculiarly inappropriate. Nor is this a case where owner and lessee are “in cahoots” in a smuggling venture or negligent in any way. The law does provide for forfeitures of property even of the innocent. But as Mr. Chief Justice Marshall said in Peisch v. Ware, 4 Cranch 347, 365: “[T]he law is not understood to forfeit the property of owners or consignees, on account of the misconduct of mere strangers, over whom such owners or consignees could have no control.”
The lessee of the vessel was, of course, no stranger.
The present case is one of extreme hardship. The District Court found that the owner “did not know that its property was being used for an illegal purpose and was completely innocent of the lessee‘s criminal act. After the seizure and within the time allowed by law, the Superintendent [of the Police] notified lessee. Plaintiff was never notified and, since lessee did not post bond, the yacht was forfeited to the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. It was not until plaintiff attempted to recover possession of the yacht after lessee had defaulted in the rental payments that plaintiff learned of its forfeiture.” 363 F. Supp. 1337, 1340. Moreover, the owner had included in the lease a prohibition against use of the yacht for an unlawful project.
If the yacht had been notoriously used in smuggling drugs, those who claim forfeiture might have equity on their side. But no such showing was made; and so far as we know only one marihuana cigarette was found on the yacht. We deal here with trivia where harsh judge-made law should be tempered with justice. I realize that the ancient law is founded on the fiction that the inanimate object itself is guilty of wrongdoing. United States v. United States Coin & Currency, 401 U. S. 715, 719-720. But that traditional forfeiture doctrine cannot at times be reconciled with the requirements of the
Puerto Rico, however, has no provision for mitigation in case the owner of the seized property is wholly innocent of any wrongdoing. And, as the Court says, these absolute, mandatory forfeiture procedures have been supported at least by much dicta in the cases.
But in my view, there was a taking of private property “for public use” under the
Notes
Title 24, §§ 2512 (a) (4) and (b) provide:
“(a) The following shall be subject to forfeiture to the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico:
“(4) All conveyances, including aircraft, vehicles, mount or vessels, which are used, or are intended for use, to transport, or in any manner to facilitate the transportation, sale, receipt, possession, or concealment of property described in clauses (1) and (2) of this subsection;
“(b) Any property subject to forfeiture under clause (4) of subsection (a) of this section shall be seized by process issued pursuant to Act No. 39, of June 4, 1960, as amended, known as the Uniform Vehicle, Mount, Vessel and Plane Seizure Act, sections 1721 and 1722 of Title 34.”
Title 34, § 1722, provides:
“Whenever any vehicle, mount, or other vessel or plane is seized . . . such seizure shall be conducted as follows:
“(a) The proceedings shall be begun by the seizure of the property by the Secretary of Justice, the Secretary of the Treasury or the Police Superintendent, through their delegates, policemen or other peace officers. The officer under whose authority the action is taken shall serve notice on the owner of the property seized or the person in charge thereof or any person having any known right or interest therein, of the seizure and of the appraisal of the properties so seized, said notice to be served in an authentic manner, within ten (10) days following such seizure and such notice shall be understood to have been served upon the mailing thereof with return receipt requested. The owners, persons in charge, and other persons having a known interest in the property so seized may challenge the confiscation within the fifteen (15) days following the service of the notice on them, through a complaint against the officer under whose authority the confiscation has been made, on whom notice shall be served, and which complaint shall be filed in the Part of the Superior Court corresponding to the place where the seizure was made and shall be heard without subjection to docket. All questions that may arise shall be decided and all other proceedings shall be conducted as in an ordinary civil action. Against the judgment entered no remedy shall lie other than a certiorari before the Supreme Court, limited to issues of law. The filing of such complaint within the period herein established shall be considered a jurisdictional prerequisite for the availing of the action herein authorized.
“(b) Every vehicle, mount, or any vessel or plane so seized shall be appraised as soon as taken possession of by the officer under whose authority the seizure took place, or by his delegate, with the exception of motor vehicles, which shall be placed under the custody of the Office of Transportation of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, which shall appraise same immediately upon receipt thereof.
“In the event of a judicial challenge of the seizure, the court shall, upon request of the plaintiff and after hearing the parties, determine the reasonableness of the appraisal as an incident of the challenge.
“Within ten (10) days after the filing of the challenge, the plaintiff shall have the right to give bond in favor of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico before the pertinent court‘s clerk to the satisfaction of the court, for the amount of the assessed value of the seized property, which bond may be in legal tender, by certified check, hypothecary debentures, or by insurance companies. Upon the acceptance of the bond, the court shall direct that the property be returned to the owner thereof. In such case, the provisions of the following paragraphs (c), (d) and (e) shall not apply.
“When bond is accepted the subsequent substitution of the seized property in lieu of the bond shall not be permitted, said bond to answer for the seizure if the lawfulness of the latter is upheld, and the court shall provide in the resolution issued to that effect, for the summary forfeiture execution of said bond by the clerk of the court and for the covering of such bond into the general funds of the Government of Puerto Rico in case it may be in legal tender or by certified check; the hypothecary debentures or debentures of insurance companies shall be transmitted by the pertinent clerk of the court to the Secretary of Justice for execution.
“(c) After fifteen (15) days have elapsed since service of notice of the seizure without the person or persons with interest in the property seized have [sic] filed the corresponding challenge, or after twenty-five (25) days have elapsed since service of notice of the seizure without the court‘s having directed that the seized property be returned on account of the bond to that effect having been given, the officer under whose authority the seizure took place, the delegate thereof, or the Office of Transportation, as the case may be, may provide for the sale at auction of the seized property, or may set the same aside for official use of the Government of Puerto Rico. In case the seized property cannot be sold at auction or set aside for official use of the Government, the property may be destroyed by the officer in charge, setting forth in a minute which he shall draw up for the purpose, the description of the property, the reasons for its destruction and the date and place where it is destroyed, and he shall serve notice with a copy thereof on the Secretary of Justice.
“(d) In case the vehicle, mount, or vessel or plane is sold at auction, the proceeds from the sale shall be covered into the general fund of the Government of Puerto Rico, after deducting and reimbursing expenses incurred.
“(e) If the seizure is judicially challenged and the court declares same illegal, the Secretary of the Treasury of Puerto Rico shall, upon presentation of a certified copy of the final decision or judgment of the court, pay to the challenger the amount of the appraisal or the proceeds from the public auction sale of such property, whichever sum is the highest, plus interest thereon at the rate of 6% per annum, counting from the date of the seizure.”
That section provides:
“Except as otherwise provided by law, any party may appeal to the Supreme Court from an order granting or denying, after notice and hearing, an interlocutory or permanent injunction in any civil action, suit or proceeding required by any Act of Congress to be heard and determined by a district court of three judges.” (Emphasis added.)
That section provides:
“An interlocutory or permanent injunction restraining the enforcement, operation or execution of any State statute by restraining the action of any officer of such State in the enforcement or execution of such statute or of an order made by an administrative board or commission acting under State statutes, shall not be granted by any district court or judge thereof upon the ground of the unconstitutionality of such statute unless the application therefor is heard and determined by a district court of three judges under section 2284 of this title.” (Emphasis added.)
The court in Mora quoted from the statement of the United States to the Secretary General of the United Nations explaining its decision to cease transmission of information concerning Puerto Rico under Art. 73 (e) of the United Nations Charter, which requires the communication of certain technical information by countries responsible for administering territories whose people have not yet attained a full measure of self-government, 115 F. Supp., at 612:
“‘By the various actions taken by the Congress and the people of Puerto Rico, Congress has agreed that Puerto Rico shall have, under that Constitution, freedom from control or interference by the Congress in respect of internal government and administration, subject only to compliance with applicable provisions of the Federal Constitution, the Puerto Rican Federal Relations Act and the acts of Congress authorizing and approving the Constitution, as may be interpreted by Judicial decision. Those laws which directed or authorized interference with matters of local government by the Federal Government have been repealed.‘”
28 Dept. of State Bull. 584, 587 (1953). But cf. Note, Puerto Rico; Colony or Commonwealth? 6 N. Y. U. J. Int‘l L. & P. 115 (1973).
Fornaris v. Ridge Tool Co., 400 U. S. 41 (1970), does not militate against this holding. There, we held that a Puerto Rican statute was not a “State statute” within
“Whether the omission was by accident or by design, our practice of strict construction of statutes authorizing appeals dictates that we not give an expansive interpretation to the word ‘State.‘” 400 U. S., at 42 n. 1.
This conclusion seems compelled by the history of the close relationship between
“[a]ttention was drawn to the disparity between the want of obligatory review over [decisions of the circuit courts involving the constitutionality of state statutes] and the existence of obligatory jurisdiction over a similar class of cases in the state courts. Senator Copeland rehearsed before the Senate correspondence he had had on this point with the Chief Justice, who had urged that if it was desirable to put the circuit courts of appeals on the same level with the state courts, it would be better to withdraw review as of right from the state courts and subject the decisions of both the state courts and the circuit courts solely to a discretionary review by the Supreme Court, rather than to allow obligatory review over all constitutional cases from both courts. The Chief Justice, however, justified the proposed discrimination on the ground that a circuit court of appeals in deciding a federal constitutional question ‘would be more likely to preserve the Federal view of the issue than the State court, at least to an extent to justify making a review of its decision by our court conditional upon our approval.’ However, an amendment prevailed which met this discrimination by allowing writ of error to the circuit courts of appeals in cases sustaining a constitutional claim against a state statute. The argument advanced by the Chief Justice thus became the basis for a new development of the principle which since 1789 had been the basis of Supreme Court review of the highest courts of the states. Due to the belief that the state courts would be more jealous of local rights than of federal claims, review had lain as of right where the constitutional claim was advanced and denied. Now, due to the belief . . . that the federal court would sustain constitutional claims as opposed to the local right, review was provided from the circuit courts of appeals where the constitutional claim was advanced and allowed. Thereby, the Senate ‘intended to put the two on a perfect parity, allowing a writ of error from the circuit court of appeals under
Thus, against that background, when Congress made
We have no occasion to address the question whether Puerto Rico is a “State” for purposes of
Appellants also argue that the seizure did not result in any injury to appellee that constituted failure of preseizure notice and hearing a denial of due process. This is so, they contend, because the lease gave the lessees exclusive right to possession at the time of the seizure, and therefore appellee‘s nonpossessory interest was adequately protected by the statutory provisions for a postseizure hearing. But the lease provides that lessees’ failure, inter alia, within 15 days after notice from appellee to pay arrears of rent or use the yacht solely for legal purposes would establish a default entitling appellee to possession. Whether a default had in fact occurred between May 6, 1972, when a lessee was first accused of a narcotics violation, and the date of seizure, July 11, 1972, is not clear from the record, although it is clear that appellee did not attempt to repossess the yacht until October 19, 1972.
Since, however, our holding is that preseizure notice and hearing are not required by due process in the context of this forfeiture,
Fuentes expressly distinguished seizure under a search warrant from seizure under a writ of replevin:
“First, a search warrant is generally issued to serve a highly important governmental need—e. g., the apprehension and conviction of criminals—rather than the mere private advantage of a private party in an economic transaction. Second, a search warrant is
We have no occasion to address the question whether the Fourth Amendment warrant or probable-cause requirements are applicable to seizures under the Puerto Rican statutes.
See Hale, n. 18, supra, at 424. Indeed, the abolition of the deodand institution in England in 1846, 9 & 10 Vict. c. 62, went hand in hand with the passage of Lord Campbell‘s Act creating a cause of action for wrongful death, 9 & 10 Vict. c. 93 (1846). Passage of the two bills was linked, because Lord Campbell was unwilling to eliminate the deodand institution, with its tendency to deter carelessness, particularly by railroads, unless a right of action was granted to the dead man‘s survivors. See 77 Hansard‘s Parliamentary Debates, Third Series 1031 (1845). See generally Finkelstein, n. 18, supra, at 170-171.
The adaptation of the deodand institution to serve the more contemporary function of deterrence is an example of a phenomenon discussed by Mr. Justice Holmes:
“The customs, beliefs, or needs of a primitive time establish a rule or a formula. In the course of centuries the custom, belief, or
“It seems also clear from the ancient authorities, that jurors always determined the amount of deodand to be imposed with great moderation, and with a due regard to the rights of property and the moral innocence of the party incurring the penalty. Our ancestors seem fully to have perceived the hardship of inflicting such penalty on one who had been guilty of no moral or indeed legal offence; and in all cases, therefore, where death was purely the result of accident, and not of negligence or carelessness, imposed a nominal fine, or found that only to be the deodand which by its immediate contact occasioned death.” Law of Deodands, supra, n. 18, at 190.
Since 1790 the Federal Government has applied the ameliorative policy—first adopted in England, see United States v. Morris, 10 Wheat. 246, 293-295 (1825)—of providing administrative remissions and mitigations of statutory forfeitures in most cases where the violations are incurred “without willful negligence” or an intent to commit the offense. See 1 Stat. 122, c. 12 (1790); 1 Stat. 506 (1797); Rev. Stat. §§ 5292-5293 (1874);