Truck seized over 5 bullets
WASHINGTON – Gerardo Serrano ticked off the border crossing agents by taking some photos on his phone. So they took his pickup truck and held onto it for more than two years.
Only after Serrano filed a federal lawsuit did he get back his Ford F-250. Now he wants the Supreme Court to step in and require a prompt court hearing as a matter of constitutional fairness whenever federal officials take someone's property under civil forfeiture law.
The justices could consider his case when they meet privately on Friday.
It's a corner of the larger forfeiture issue, when federal, state or local officials take someone's property, without ever having to prove that it has been used for illicit purposes.
Since 2000, governments have acquired at least $68.8 billion in forfeited property, according to the Institute for Justice, a libertarian public interest law firm that represents Serrano and tracks seizures. The group says the number “drastically underestimates forfeiture's true scope” because not all states provide data.
Serrano's troubles stemmed from some pictures he took along the way of a long trip from his home in Tyner, Kentucky, to visit relatives, including a dying aunt, in Zaragosa, Mexico. The photo-taking attracted the attention of U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents in Eagle Pass, Texas.
When Serrano refused to hand over the password to his phone, the agents went through the 2014 silver pickup truck in great detail. They justified its seizure by saying they found “munitions of war” inside – five forgotten bullets, though no gun.
Serrano, 62, initially took a gun, for which he has a permit, but a Mexican cousin warned him not to bring it into Mexico. He ditched the weapon, but forgot about the few bullets the agents eventually found.
A one-time Republican candidate for Congress, Serrano recalled being surprised at his treatment at the border in September 2015.
The Biden administration is urging the court to reject the case, saying there was nothing wrong with the initial seizure of the pickup and arguing that Serrano's claims ended when the vehicle was returned to him.
But Serrano's lawyers contend that the court should confront the issue because otherwise governments will continue to hold property for long periods and return it only to evade a judge's review. “The rampant due process violations associated with modern civil forfeiture warrant review,” they said in a high-court filing.