A (timely?) round up of some commentary on Culley v Marshall

Last Thursday, as noted in this post, the US Supreme Court in Culley v. Marshall rejected certain challenges to Alabama’s civil forfeiture proceedings, holding that the “Constitution requires a timely forfeiture hearing; the Constitution does not also require a separate preliminary hearing.”  Though a notable concurrence by Justice Gorsuch (joined by Justice Thomas) and a notable dissent by Justice Sotomayor (joined by Justices Kagan and Jackson) raised a bunch of notable policy concerns with civil forfeiture practices, I find the Court’s opinon generally sound.  And I figured I would roung up a few commentaries on the Court’s work with a range of views:

From Adam’s Legal Newsletter, “In praise of robotic judging: The Supreme Court mindlessly and correctly decides Culley v. Marshall“

From Crime and Consequences, “Forfeitures: Govt. Win in SCOTUS with a Warning“

From The Federalist Society, “An Observation About Culley v. Marshall“

From Law Dork, “Civil asset forfeiture is on notice — but came out unscathed at SCOTUS for now“

From the Volokh Conspiracy, “Supreme Court Issues Flawed Ruling in Asset Forfeiture Case“

As some of these commentaries note, the separate opinions in Culley seem to signal there are at least five Justices prepared to take up other cases, in the words of Justice Gorsuch, to explore whether “contemporary civil forfeiture practices can be squared with the Constitution’s promise of due process.”  But I was struck that the fact of the cases from Alabama before SCOTUS this time included what seemed to be significant procedural failings from the petitioners; as the Court’s opinion stressed, “Culley and Sutton do not challenge the timeliness of their forfeiture hearings.”   When persons do not make good use of the state processes provided, it is always going to be hard to thereafter prevail on claims that these processes were not “due.”