Gary Kent Jones v. Linda K. Flowers, et al. (547 U.S. 220)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided April 26, 2006 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 547 U.S. 220 · 126 S. Ct. 1708
- Decided
- April 26, 2006
- Term
- October Term 2005
- Vote
- 5–3
- Majority author
- Justice Roberts
- Issue area
- Due Process
- Disposition
- Reversed and remanded
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Liberal
- Constitutional ruling
- State/territorial law held unconstitutional
Opinion excerpt
Chief Justice Roberts delivered the opinion of the Court. Before a State may take property and sell it for unpaid taxes, the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment requires the government to provide the owner “notice and opportunity for hearing appropriate to the nature of the case.” Mullane v. Central Hanover Bank & Trust Co., 339 U. S. 306, 313 (1950). We granted certiorari to determine whether, when notice of a tax sale is mailed to the owner and returned undelivered, the government must take additional reasonable steps to provide notice before taking the owner’s property. I In 1967, petitioner Gary Jones purchased a house at 717 North Bryan Street in Little Rock, Arkansas. He lived in the house with his wife until they separated in 1993. Jones then moved into an apartment in Little Rock, and his wife continued to live in the North Bryan Street house. Jones paid his mortgage each month for 30 years, and the mortgage company paid Jones’ property taxes. After Jones paid off his mortgage in 1997, the property taxes went unpaid, and the property was certified as delinquent. In April 2000, respondent Mark Wilcox, the Commissioner of State Lands (Commissioner), attempted to notify Jones of his tax delinquency, and his right to redeem the property, by mailing a certified letter to Jones at the North Bryan Street address. See Ark. Code Ann. §26-37-301 (1997). The packet of…
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