Bennis v. Michigan, 516 U.S. 442, 5 (1996)

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446

BENNIS v. MICHIGAN

Opinion of the Court

federal constitutional challenges to the State's abatement scheme: The court assumed that petitioner did not know of or consent to the misuse of the Bennis car, and concluded in light of our decisions in Van Oster v. Kansas, 272 U. S. 465 (1926), and Calero-Toledo v. Pearson Yacht Leasing Co., 416 U. S. 663 (1974), that Michigan's failure to provide an innocent-owner defense was "without constitutional consequence." 447 Mich., at 740-741, 527 N. W. 2d, at 493-494. The Michigan Supreme Court specifically noted that, in its view, an owner's interest may not be abated when "a vehicle is used without the owner's consent." Id., at 742, n. 36, 527 N. W. 2d, at 495, n. 36. Furthermore, the court confirmed the trial court's description of the nuisance abatement proceeding as an "equitable action," and considered it "critical" that the trial judge so comprehended the statute. Id., at 742, 527 N. W. 2d, at 495.

We granted certiorari in order to determine whether Michigan's abatement scheme has deprived petitioner of her interest in the forfeited car without due process, in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment, or has taken her interest for public use without compensation, in violation of the Fifth Amendment as incorporated by the Fourteenth Amendment. 515 U. S. 1121 (1995). We affirm.

The gravamen of petitioner's due process claim is not that she was denied notice or an opportunity to contest the abatement of her car; she was accorded both. Cf. United States v. James Daniel Good Real Property, 510 U. S. 43 (1993). Rather, she claims she was entitled to contest the abatement by showing she did not know her husband would use it to violate Michigan's indecency law. But 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.

Our earliest opinion to this effect is Justice Story's opinion for the Court in The Palmyra, 12 Wheat. 1 (1827). The Pal-

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