56
Opinion of the Court
where the Government has a direct pecuniary interest in the outcome of the proceeding.2 See Harmelin v. Michigan, 501 U. S. 957, 979, n. 9 (1991) (opinion of Scalia, J.) ("[I]t makes sense to scrutinize governmental action more closely when the State stands to benefit"). Moreover, the availability of a postseizure hearing may be no recompense for losses caused by erroneous seizure. Given the congested civil dockets in federal courts, a claimant may not receive an adversary hearing until many months after the seizure. And even if the ultimate judicial decision is that the claimant was an innocent owner, or that the Government lacked probable cause, this determination, coming months after the seizure, "would not cure the temporary deprivation that an earlier hearing might have prevented." Doehr, 501 U. S., at 15.
This brings us to the third consideration under Mathews, "the Government's interest, including the function involved and the fiscal and administrative burdens that the additional or substitute procedural requirement would entail." 424 U. S., at 335. The governmental interest we consider here is not some general interest in forfeiting property but the specific interest in seizing real property before the forfeiture hearing. The question in the civil forfeiture context is whether ex parte seizure is justified by a pressing need for prompt action. See Fuentes, 407 U. S., at 91. We find no pressing need here.
2 The extent of the Government's financial stake in drug forfeiture is apparent from a 1990 memo, in which the Attorney General urged United States Attorneys to increase the volume of forfeitures in order to meet the Department of Justice's annual budget target:
"We must significantly increase production to reach our budget target. ". . . Failure to achieve the $470 million projection would expose the Department's forfeiture program to criticism and undermine confidence in our budget projections. Every effort must be made to increase forfeiture income during the remaining three months of [fiscal year] 1990." Executive Office for United States Attorneys, U. S. Dept. of Justice, 38 United States Attorney's Bulletin 180 (1990).
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