Cite as: 518 U. S. 267 (1996)
Opinion of Stevens, J.
mental proposition that all forfeitures must be accomplished within the constraints set by the Constitution. See, e. g., Austin v. United States, 509 U. S. 602 (1993); United States v. James Daniel Good Real Property, 510 U. S. 43 (1993). This Term the Court has begun dismantling the protections it so recently erected. In Bennis v. Michigan, 516 U. S. 442 (1996), the Court held that officials may confiscate an innocent person's automobile. And today, for the first time, it upholds the forfeiture of a person's home. On the way to its surprising conclusion that the owner is not punished by the loss of his residence, the Court repeatedly professes its adherence to tradition and time-honored practice. As I discuss below, however, the decision shows a stunning disregard not only for modern precedents but for our older ones as well.
In the Court's view, the seminal case is Various Items of Personal Property v. United States, 282 U. S. 577 (1931), which approved the forfeiture of an illegal distillery by resort to the "legal fiction" that the distillery rather than its owner was being punished "as though it were conscious instead of inanimate and insentient." Id., at 581. Starting from that fanciful premise, the Court was able to conclude that confiscating the property after the owner was prosecuted for the underlying violations of the revenue laws did not offend the Double Jeopardy Clause.
According to the Court, Various Items established a categorical rule that the Double Jeopardy Clause was "inapplicable to civil forfeiture actions." Ante, at 274. The Court asserts that this rule has received "remarkably consistent" application and was "reaffirmed" by a pair of cases in 1972 and 1984. Ante, at 278, 276. In reality, however, shortly after its announcement, Various Items simply disappeared from our jurisprudence. We cited that case in only two decisions over the next seven years, and never again in
States v. James Daniel Good Real Property, 510 U. S. 43, 81-82 (1993) (opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part) (footnotes omitted).
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