572
Stevens, J., dissenting
even though there may be no basis for believing the car then contains any contraband or other evidence of wrongdoing.6
Of course, requiring police officers to obtain warrants in cases such as the one before us will not allay every concern private property owners might have regarding government discretion and potentially permanent seizures of private property under the authority of a State's criminal laws. Had the officers in this case obtained a warrant in July or August, perhaps they nevertheless could or would have executed that warrant months later; and, as the Court suggests, ante, at 565, n. 4, delay between the basis for a seizure and its effectuation might support a Fourth Amendment objection whether or not a warrant was obtained. That said, a warrant application interjects the judgment of a neutral decisionmaker, one with no pecuniary interest in the matter, see Connally v. Georgia, 429 U. S. 245, 250-251 (1977) (per curiam), before the burden of obtaining possession of the property shifts to the individual. Knowing that a neutral party
6 The Court's reliance on G. M. Leasing Corp. v. United States, 429 U. S. 338 (1977), is misplaced. The seizure in that case was supported by an earlier tax assessment that was "given the force of a judgment." Id., at 352, n. 18 (internal quotation marks omitted). We emphasized that the owner of the automobiles in question lacked a privacy interest, but he had also lost any possessory interest in the property by way of the prior judgment. In this case, despite plenty of time to obtain a warrant that would provide similar preseizure authority for the police, they acted entirely on their own assessment of the probative force of evidence relating to earlier events. In addition, White's property interests in his car were apparently not extinguished until, at the earliest, the seizure took place. See Fla. Stat. §§ 932.703(1)(c)-(d) (1997) (the State acquires rights, interest, and title in contraband articles at the time of seizure, and the seizing agency may not use the seized property until such rights, interest, and title are "perfected" in accordance with the statute); § 932.704(8); Soldal v. Cook County, 506 U. S. 56, 63-64 (1992). This statutory scheme and its aims, see Fla. Stat. § 932.704(1) (1997), also distinguish more mundane and temporary vehicle seizures performed for regulatory purposes and immediate public needs, such as a tow from a no-parking zone. No one contends that a warrant is necessary in that case.
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