472
Kennedy, J., dissenting
Grant Co., 254 U. S., at 512. That time has arrived when the State forfeits a woman's car because her husband has secretly committed a misdemeanor inside it. While I am not prepared to draw a bright line that will separate the permissible and impermissible forfeitures of the property of innocent owners, I am convinced that the blatant unfairness of this seizure places it on the unconstitutional side of that line.
I therefore respectfully dissent.
Justice Kennedy, dissenting.
The forfeiture of vessels pursuant to the admiralty and maritime law has a long, well-recognized tradition, evolving as it did from the necessity of finding some source of compensation for injuries done by a vessel whose responsible owners were often half a world away and beyond the practical reach of the law and its processes. See Harmony v. United States, 2 How. 210, 233 (1844); Republic Nat. Bank of Miami v. United States, 506 U. S. 80, 87-88 (1992). The prospect of deriving prompt compensation from in rem forfeiture, and the impracticality of adjudicating the innocence of the owners or their good-faith efforts in finding a diligent and trustworthy master, combined to eliminate the owner's lack of culpability as a defense. See Harmony v. United States, supra, at 233. Those realities provided a better justification for forfeiture than earlier, more mechanistic rationales. Cf. Calero-Toledo v. Pearson Yacht Leasing Co., 416 U. S. 663, 680-681 (1974) (discussing deodands). The tradeoff, of course, was that the owner's absolute liability was limited to the amount of the vessel and (or) its cargo. For that reason, it seems to me inaccurate, or at least not well supported, to say that the owner's personal culpability was part of the forfeiture rationale. Austin v. United States, 509 U. S. 602, 625 (1993) (Scalia, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment); id., at 628-629 (Kennedy, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment). As Justice Stevens observes, however, ante, at 466-467, even the well-recognized
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