4th Amendment Violation – Sale of Seized Property

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7^th Circuit Court of Appeals

Case Name: Blake Conyers, et al., v. City of Chicago

Case No.: 20-1934

Officials: EASTERBROOK, WOOD, and KIRSCH, Circuit Judges.

Focus: 4^th Amendment Violation – Sale of Seized Property

The City of Chicago requires its police officers to seize, inventory, and store any property belonging to an arrested person, if that property is not permitted in the Cook County Jail. After 30 days, the City deems abandoned any property unclaimed by the owner or her authorized representative, and it sells or destroys the presumptively abandoned items. CHI.,ILL., MUNICIPAL CODE § 2-84-160 et seq. (2007). Blake Conyers, Lamar Ewing, and Kevin Flint seek to represent hundreds of people whose property has been destroyed under this regime. Invoking 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and several constitutional provisions, they challenge the City’s policy as unconstitutional.

It is important to note at the outset that the City’s right to seize and inventory the property upon arrest is not at issue. It is well settled that it may do so. See Illinois v. Lafayette, 462 U.S. 640, 646 (1983). Likewise, plaintiffs do not contend that municipalities are not permitted to manage seized property. Their focus is instead on the policy the City has chosen for property owned by arrestees held at the Jail for more than the permitted 30-day period. As applied to that property, they contend, the City’s destroy-or-sell policy violates the Fourth, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendments, as well as Illinois law. While we can understand their frustration, however, we find no error in the district court’s decision that they have failed to state any claim on which relief can be granted. We therefore affirm the judgment of the district court.

Affirmed

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Derek A Hawkins is Corporate Counsel, at Salesforce.