Cite as: 509 U. S. 602 (1993)
Opinion of the Court
the goods must be made with his consent or connivance, or with that of some person employed or trusted by him. If, by private theft, or open robbery, without any fault on his part, his property should be invaded, while in the custody of the officer of the revenue, the law cannot be understood to punish him with the forfeiture of that property." Id., at 364.8
The same understanding of forfeiture as punishment runs through our cases rejecting the "innocence" of the owner as a common-law defense to forfeiture. See, e. g., Calero-Toledo, 416 U. S., at 683; J. W. Goldsmith, Jr.-Grant Co. v. United States, 254 U. S. 505 (1921); Dobbins's Distillery v. United States, 96 U. S. 395 (1878); Harmony v. United States, 2 How. 210 (1844); The Palmyra, 12 Wheat. 1 (1827). In these cases, forfeiture has been justified on two theories—that the property itself is "guilty" of the offense, and that the owner may be held accountable for the wrongs of others to whom he entrusts his property. Both theories rest, at bottom, on the notion that the owner has been negligent in allowing his property to be misused and that he is properly punished for that negligence.
The fiction that "the thing is primarily considered the offender," Goldsmith-Grant Co., 254 U. S., at 511, has a venerable history in our case law.9 See The Palmyra, 12 Wheat.,
8 In Peisch, the removal of the goods from the custody of the revenue officer occurred not by theft or robbery, but pursuant to a writ of replevin issued by a state court. See 4 Cranch, at 360. Thus, Peisch stands for the general principle that "the law is not understood to forfeit the property of owners or consignees, on account of the misconduct of mere strangers, over whom such owners or consignees could have no control." Id., at 365.
9 The Government relies heavily on this fiction. See Brief for United States 18. We do not understand the Government to rely separately on the technical distinction between proceedings in rem and proceedings in personam, but we note that any such reliance would be misplaced. "The fictions of in rem forfeiture were developed primarily to expand the reach of the courts," Republic Nat. Bank of Miami v. United States, 506 U. S.
615
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