Alvarez v. Smith

• Decision Date: 08 December 2009
• Docket Number: No. 08–351.,08–351.
• Citation: 175 L.Ed.2d 447,558 U.S. 87,130 S.Ct. 576,78 USLW 4015
• Parties: Anita ALVAREZ, Cook County State's Attorney, Petitioner, v. Chermane SMITH et al.
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

558 U.S. 87

130 S.Ct. 576

175 L.Ed.2d 447

78 USLW 4015

Anita ALVAREZ, Cook County State's Attorney, Petitioner,

v.Chermane SMITH et al.

No. 08–351.

Supreme Court of the United States

Argued Oct. 14, 2009.

Decided Dec. 8, 2009.

Negative Treatment Vacated

S.H.A. 725 ILCS 150/1

Syllabus^*

Illinois law provides for forfeiture of movable personal property used to facilitate a drug crime, permits police to seize the property without a warrant, and allows the State to keep the property nearly five months before beginning judicial forfeiture proceedings. Respondents, six individuals who had cars and cash seized under that law, brought this federal civil rights action, claiming that the failure of the State to provide a speedy postseizure hearing violated the federal Due Process Clause. The District Court dismissed the case based on Circuit precedent, but, on appeal, the Seventh Circuit departed from that precedent and ruled for respondents. This Court granted certiorari to review the Seventh Circuit's due process determination, but at oral argument the Court learned that all of the actual property disputes between the parties had been resolved.

Held:

1. The case is moot. The Constitution permits this Court to decide legal questions only in the context of actual “Cases” or “Controversies,” Art. III, § 2, and an actual controversy must exist at all stages of review, not just when the complaint is filed, Preiser v. Newkirk, 422 U.S. 395, 401, 95 S.Ct. 2330, 45 L.Ed.2d 272. Here there is no longer any actual controversy regarding ownership or possession of the underlying property. There is no claim for damages before this Court; there is no properly certified class or dispute over class certification; and this case does not fit within the category of cases that are “capable of repetition” while “evading review.” Only an abstract dispute about the law remains. Pp. 580 – 581.

2. The judgment below is vacated. In moot cases, this Court normally vacates the lower court judgment, which clears the path for relitigation of the issues and preserves the rights of the parties, while prejudicing none by a preliminary decision. United States v. Munsingwear, Inc., 340 U.S. 36, 40, 71 S.Ct. 104, 95 L.Ed. 36. Where mootness is the result of settlement rather than happenstance, however, the losing party forfeits the equitable remedy of vacatur. U.S. Bancorp Mortgage Co. v. Bonner Mall Partnership, 513 U.S. 18, 25, 115 S.Ct. 386, 130 L.Ed.2d 233. This case more closely resembles mootness through happenstance than through settlement. In Bancorp, the party seeking review caused the mootness by voluntarily settling the issue contested throughout the litigation. Here, the Court believes that the presence of the federal case played no significant role in the termination of plaintiffs' state-court forfeiture proceedings. Plaintiffs' forfeiture cases took place with no procedural link to the case before this Court; apparently terminated on substantive grounds in their ordinary course; and, to the Court's knowledge, no one raised the procedural question at issue here in those cases. This Court therefore concludes that it should follow its ordinary practice and order vacatur. Pp. 581 – 583.

524 F.3d 834, vacated and remanded.

BREYER, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which ROBERTS, C.J., and SCALIA, KENNEDY, THOMAS, GINSBURG, ALITO, and SOTOMAYOR, JJ., joined, and in which STEVENS, J., joined as to Parts I and II. STEVENS, J., filed an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part.

Paul Castiglione, Chicago, IL, for petitioner.

William M. Jay, for United States as amicus curiae by special leave of the Court, supporting petitioner.

Thomas Peters, Chicago, IL, for respondents.

Anita Alvarez, Cook County State's Attorney, Patrick T. Driscoll, Jr., Deputy State's Attorney, Chief, Civil Actions Bureau, Alan J. Spellberg, Paul A. Castiglione, Counsel of Record, Assistant State's Attorneys, Chicago, IL, for petitioner.

Thomas Peters, Attorney of Record, Kevin Peters, Mary Desloover, Chicago, IL, Craig B. Futterman, Richard Epstein, University Of Chicago Law School, Chicago, IL, for respondents.

Justice BREYER delivered the opinion of the Court.

We granted certiorari in this case to determine whether Illinois law provides a sufficiently speedy opportunity for an individual, whose car or cash police have seized without a warrant, to contest the lawfulness of the seizure. See U.S. Const., Amdt. 14, § 1; United States v. Von Neumann, 474 U.S. 242, 106 S.Ct. 610, 88 L.Ed.2d 587 (1986); United States v. $8,850, 461 U.S. 555, 103 S.Ct. 2005, 76 L.Ed.2d 143 (1983). At the time of oral argument, however, we learned that the underlying property disputes have all ended. The State has returned all the cars that it seized, and the individual property owners have either forfeited any relevant cash or have accepted as final the State's return of some of it. We consequently find the case moot, and we therefore vacate the judgment of the Court of Appeals and remand the case to that court with instructions to dismiss. United States v. Munsingwear, Inc., 340 U.S. 36, 39, 71 S.Ct. 104, 95 L.Ed. 36 (1950); see also E. Gressman, K. Geller, S. Shapiro, T. Bishop, & E. Hartnett, Supreme Court Practice 941–942 (9th ed. 2007).

I

Illinois law provides for forfeiture of movable personal property (including cars and cash) used “to facilitate” a drug crime. Ill. Comp. Stat., ch. 720, § 570/505(a)(6) (West 2008). It permits a police officer to seize that property without a warrant where (1) the officer has “probable cause to believe” the property was so used and (2) a “warrantless seizure ... would be reasonable” in the circumstances. § 570/505(b). When an officer has seized property without a warrant, the relevant law enforcement agency must notify the State's Attorney within 52 days of the seizure; the State's Attorney must notify the property owner of any impending forfeiture within a further 45 days; and, if the owner wishes to contest forfeiture, the State's Attorney must begin judicial forfeiture proceedings within yet a further 45 days. See ch. 725, §§ 150/5–150/6. Thus, the statute gives the State up to 142 days, nearly five months, to begin judicial forfeiture proceedings—during which time the statute permits the State to keep the car or cash within its possession.

On November 22, 2006, six individuals (the respondents or “plaintiffs”) brought this federal civil rights action against defendants the city of Chicago, the Superintendent of the Chicago Police Department, and the Cook County State's Attorney (the petitioner here, whom we shall call the “State's Attorney”). See Rev. Stat. § 1979, 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Three of the individuals, Chermane Smith, Edmanuel Perez, and Tyhesha Brunston, said that earlier in 2006 the police had, upon their arrests, seized their cars without a warrant. See Complaint ¶ 25, App. 34a (Smith, seizure on Jan. 19, 2006); id., ¶ 26, at 34a (Perez, seizure on Mar. 8, 2006); id., ¶ 27, at 34a (Brunston, seizure on Apr. 8, 2006); Plaintiffs' Motion for Class Certification ¶ 8, at 39a. The other three plaintiffs, Michelle Waldo, Kirk Yunker, and Tony Williams, said that earlier in 2006 police had, upon their arrests, seized their cash without a warrant. See Complaint ¶ 28, at 34a–35a (Waldo, seizure on Jan. 20, 2006); id., ¶ 29, at 35a (Yunker, seizure on Sept. 26, 2006); id., ¶ 30, at 35a (Williams, seizure in July 2006); Plaintiffs' Motion for Class Certification ¶ 8, at 39a. The plaintiffs added that the police department still had custody of their property. See Complaint ¶¶ 24–30, at 34a–35a. They claimed that the failure of the State to provide a speedy postseizure hearing violated the federal Due Process Clause. See U.S. Const., Amdt. 14, § 1. And they asked the court (1) to certify the case as a class action, (2) to declare that they had a due process right to a prompt postseizure probable-cause hearing, (3) to declare that the hearing must take place within 10 days of any seizure, and (4) to enjoin the defendants' current practice of keeping the property in custody for a longer time without a judicial determination of probable cause. See Complaint ¶ 36, App. 36a.

The defendants moved to dismiss the complaint on the ground that Seventh Circuit precedent made clear that “the Constitution does not require any procedure prior to the actual forfeiture proceeding.” Jones v. Takaki, 38 F.3d 321, 324 (1994) (citing Von Neumann, supra, at 249). On February 22, 2007, the District Court granted the motion to dismiss. It also denied the plaintiffs' motion for class certification. The plaintiffs appealed.

On May 2, 2008, the Seventh Circuit decided the appeal in the plaintiffs' favor. Smith v. Chicago, 524 F.3d 834. It reconsidered and departed from its earlier precedent. Id., at 836–839. It held that “the procedures set out in” the Illinois statute “show insufficient concern for the due process right of the plaintiffs.” Id., at 838. And it added that, “given the length of time which can result between the seizure of property and the opportunity for an owner to contest the seizure under” Illinois law, “some sort of mechanism to test the validity of the retention of the property is required.” Ibid. The Court of Appeals reversed the judgment of the District Court and remanded the case for further proceedings. Id., at 839. Its mandate issued about seven weeks thereafter.

On February 23, 2009, we granted certiorari to review the Seventh Circuit's “due process” determination. The Court of Appeals then recalled its mandate. The parties filed briefs in this Court. We then recognized that the case might be moot, and we asked the parties to address the question of mootness at the forthcoming oral argument.

At oral argument counsel for both sides confirmed that there was no longer any dispute about ownership or possession of the relevant property. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 5 (State's Attorney); id., at 56–57 (plaintiffs). The State had returned the...