Cite as: 526 U. S. 559 (1999)
Stevens, J., dissenting
manic significance to use of the term "contraband" whenever a legislature may resort to a novel forfeiture sanction in the interest of law enforcement, as legislatures are evincing increasing ingenuity in doing, cf., e. g., Bennis v. Michigan, 516 U. S. 442, 443-446 (1996); id., at 458 (Stevens, J., dissenting); United States v. James Daniel Good Real Property, 510 U. S. 43, 81-82, and n. 1 (1993) (Thomas, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part) (expressing concern about the breadth of new forfeiture statutes). Moreover, G. M. Leasing Corp. v. United States, 429 U. S. 338 (1977) (upon which we rely today), endorsed the public character of a warrantless seizure scheme by reference to traditional enforcement of government revenue laws, id., at 351-352, and n. 18 (citing, e. g., Murray's Lessee v. Hoboken Land & Improvement Co., 18 How. 272 (1856)), and the legality of seizing abandoned contraband in public view, 429 U. S., at 352 (citing Hester v. United States, 265 U. S. 57 (1924)).
Justice Stevens, with whom Justice Ginsburg joins, dissenting.
During the summer of 1993, Florida police obtained evidence that Tyvessel White was engaged in the sale and delivery of narcotics, and that he was using his car to facilitate the enterprise. For reasons unexplained, the police neither arrested White at that point nor seized his automobile as an instrumentality of his alleged narcotics offenses. Most important to the resolution of this case, the police did not seek to obtain a warrant before seizing White's car that fall—over two months after the last event that justified the seizure. Instead, after arresting White at work on an unrelated matter and obtaining his car keys, the officers seized White's automobile without a warrant from his employer's parking lot and performed an inventory search. The Florida Supreme Court concluded that the seizure, which took place absent exigent circumstances or probable cause to be-
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