462
Stevens, J., dissenting
port bootleg liquor, or to smuggle goods into the United States in violation of our customs laws.7
While our historical cases establish the propriety of seizing a freighter when its entire cargo consists of smuggled goods, none of them would justify the confiscation of an ocean liner just because one of its passengers sinned while on board. See, e. g., Phile v. Ship Anna, 1 Dall. 197, 206 (C. P. Phila. Cty. 1787) (holding that forfeiture of a ship was inappropriate if an item of contraband hidden on board was "a trifling thing, easily concealed, and which might fairly escape the notice of the captain"); J. W. Goldsmith, Jr.-Grant Co. v. United States, 254 U. S. 505, 512 (1921) (expressing doubt about expansive forfeiture applications). The principal use of the car in this case was not to provide a site for petitioner's husband to carry out forbidden trysts. Indeed, there is no evidence in the record that the car had ever previously been used for a similar purpose. An isolated misuse of a stationary vehicle should not justify the forfeiture of an innocent owner's property on the theory that it constituted an instrumentality of the crime.
This case differs from our historical precedents in a second, crucial way. In those cases, the vehicles or the property actually facilitated the offenses themselves. See id., at 513 (referring to "the adaptability of a particular form of property to an illegal purpose"); Harmony v. United States, 2 How. 210, 235 (1844). Our leading decisions on forfeited conveyances, for example, involved offenses of which transportation was an element. In Van Oster v. Kansas, 272 U. S. 465 (1926), for example, the applicable statute prohibited transportation of intoxicating liquor. See id., at 466. See also Carroll v. United States, 267 U. S. 132, 136 (1925) (car
7 See, e. g., Van Oster v. Kansas, 272 U. S. 465 (1926) (transportation); J. W. Goldsmith, Jr.-Grant Co. v. United States, 254 U. S. 505 (1921) (same); General Motors Acceptance Corp. v. United States, 286 U. S. 49 (1932) (importation); United States v. Commercial Credit Co., 286 U. S. 63 (1932) (same).
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