In February 2019, police in Satsuma, Alabama, a city of 7,000 residents 20 minutes up the road from Mobile, seized a 2015 Nissan Altima owned by Georgia resident Halima Culley after they arrested her college-student son for marijuana possession. Twenty months elapsed before police returned the car to Culley after a state judge determined she was uninvolved in the crime. On Oct. 30, attorneys in a class action lawsuit led by Culley argued before the U.S. Supreme Court that civil asset-forfeiture cases should automatically require a "retention hearing" within two weeks of an initial seizure so that owners can contest...
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