126
Opinion of Stevens, J.
The same rule applied when a statute (a statute that contained no specific relation back provision) authorized the forfeiture. In a passage to which the Government has referred us,21 we stated our understanding of how the Government's title to forfeited property relates back to the moment of forfeitability:
"By the settled doctrine of this court, whenever a statute enacts that upon the commission of a certain act specific property used in or connected with that act shall be forfeited, the forfeiture takes effect immediately upon the commission of the act; the right to the property then vests in the United States, although their title is not perfected until judicial condemnation; the forfeiture constitutes a statutory transfer of the right to the United States at the time the offence is committed; and
an interest exists, it may be extinguished by a sale to a bona fide purchaser; they provide no support for the assumption that such an interest springs into existence independently. As a matter of common law, his proposal is inconsistent with Chief Justice Marshall's statement that "nothing vests in the government until some legal step shall be taken," and with the cases cited by Justice Scalia, post, at 132. As a matter of statutory law, it is improper to rely on § 881(a) as the source of the Government's interest in proceeds without also giving effect to the statutory language defining the scope of that interest. That a statutory provision contains "puzzling" language, or seems unwise, is not an appropriate reason for simply ignoring its text.
Justice Kennedy's dramatic suggestion that our construction of the 1984 amendment "rips out," post, at 145, the "centerpiece of the Nation's drug enforcement laws," post, at 144, rests on what he characterizes as the "safe" assumption that the innocent owner defense would be available to "an associate" of a criminal who could "shelter the proceeds from forfeiture, to be reacquired once he is clear from law enforcement authorities," ibid. As a matter of fact, forfeitable proceeds are much more likely to be possessed by drug dealers themselves than by transferees sufficiently remote to qualify as innocent owners; as a matter of law, it is quite clear that neither an "associate" in the criminal enterprise nor a temporary custodian of drug proceeds would qualify as an innocent owner; indeed, neither would a sham bona fide purchaser.
21 See Pet. for Cert. 9-10; Brief for United States 17.
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