Case I have to announce is number 948729, Venice against Michigan.

Hey everyone, this is Leon Nefak from Fiasco and Slowburn.

On today's episode of 5-4, Peter, Riannan and Michael are talking about Venice V Michigan.

At issue is civil forfeiture, a practice that allows law enforcement to seize a person's private property

if it's implicated in an alleged crime, and to keep it, whether or not the owner is found guilty.

You don't need to be proven guilty of a crime for your goods to be taken away.

So there's no trial, there's no requirement to provide evidence to prove the state's suspicion.

They just take your stuff.

This is 5-4, a podcast about how much the Supreme Court sucks.

Welcome to 5-4, where we dissect and analyze the Supreme Court decisions

that have broken down American society like radiation on human DNA.

I am Peter, Twitter's the law boy, I'm here with Riannan.

Hi everybody.

And Michael, hey, and today we are talking about Venice V Michigan.

This is a case about civil forfeiture.

The process that allows cops to permanently seize the property of criminal suspects,

whether or not they've been convicted of a crime.

This is the latest addition to our catalog of episodes in which the court gives a big thumbs up

to the most on their face, egregious practices of the American criminal justice system.

Yeah.

And before we get into it, I'm going to pose a law school style hypothetical to our listeners.

Oh.

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