Tina B. Bennis v. Michigan (516 U.S. 442)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided March 4, 1996 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 516 U.S. 442 · 116 S. Ct. 994
- Decided
- March 4, 1996
- Term
- October Term 1995
- Vote
- 5–4
- Majority author
- Justice Rehnquist
- Issue area
- Due Process
- Disposition
- Affirmed
- Outcome
- Petitioning party lost
- Ideological direction
- Conservative
Opinion excerpt
Chief Justice Rehnquist delivered the opinion of the Court. Petitioner was a joint owner, with her husband, of an automobile in which her husband engaged in sexual activity with a prostitute. A Michigan court ordered the automobile forfeited as a public nuisance, with no offset for her interest, notwithstanding her lack of knowledge of her husband’s activity. We hold that the Michigan court order did not offend the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment or the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment. Detroit police arrested John Bennis after observing him engaged in a sexual act with a prostitute in the automobile while it was parked on a Detroit city street. Bennis was convicted of gross indecency. The State then sued both Bennis and his wife, petitioner Tina B. Bennis, to have the car declared a public nuisance and abated as such under §§600.3801 and 600.3825 of Michigan’s Compiled Laws. Petitioner defended against the abatement of her interest in the car on the ground that, when she entrusted her husband to use the car, she did not know that he would use it to violate Michigan’s indecency law. The Wayne County Circuit Court rejected this argument, declared the car a public nuisance, and ordered the car’s abatement. In reaching this disposition, the trial court judge recognized the remedial discretion he had under Michigan’s case law. App. 21. He took into account the…
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