When third-year law student Kathleen Rubenstein was a child, she dreamed of being a Supreme Court Justice. So it was a huge thrill for her to be part of a legal team from the Law School that helped prepare a case for the nation’s highest court.
Over the past six months, Rubenstein and six other students put in hundreds of hours at the Edwin F. Mandel Legal Aid Clinic, working on a case involving Illinois’ property seizure law. The students went to Washington, DC in October to attend oral arguments on the case before the nine Justices.
“It is a once-in-a-lifetime experience,” says Craig Futterman, Clinical Professor of Law, who oversaw the students’ work.
Such an honor for students is rare even at top programs such as the Law School. Out of 8,000 petitions filed annually with the Supreme Court, the Justices grant less than 100 hearings. For law students to help assemble a Supreme Court argument is virtually a once-in-a-generation chance. Only one other time in its 50-year history has the Clinic had a case go to the Supreme Court, with Logan v. Zimmerman Brush Co. in 1982, from which Clinic lawyers emerged victorious.
“To have that opportunity as a law student is awesome, in every sense of the word. It’s inspiring and exciting on the one hand, and a bit scary on the other,” says Pier Petersen, who graduated from the Law School in June and is now a public defender in Guam. “The work we did will have a direct impact on Americans’ due process rights.”
Drug-related Seizures Affect ‘Innocent Owners’
On Wednesday, Oct. 14, four of the seven students went to Washington’s US Supreme Court building to support their legal team’s senior members, co-counsel Futterman and Tom Peters, Attorney at Law, for their oral arguments in support of the plaintiffs.
The case, Alvarez v. Smith, examines the constitutionality of the Illinois Drug Asset Forfeiture Procedure Act, which essentially allows law enforcement agencies to seize and retain vehicles and cash linked to drug crimes for more than six months without requiring a hearing on that seizure’s merits. In some cases, the property owner is an offender’s relative or friend, who did not know that the borrowed property would be used in a crime.
“As a general rule, due process requires a hearing before the government may seize private property,” Futterman explained. “When you are dealing with movable property like cars, however, the Court has held that it would be impractical to hold a hearing before the seizure.
“When there is no pre-seizure process, it is even more critical that the owner receive a prompt post-seizure hearing before a neutral judge, especially where property forfeiture has become a multi-billion-dollar-a-year business for law enforcement,” he argued, saying the months-long detention of cars is a hardship few can afford.
“I was heartened to hear many justices were very interested in the Fourth Amendment aspect of the argument—that the validity of the seizure should be tested by an independent judge or magistrate in a much shorter period than the months allowed under Illinois law,” said Rubenstein of the proceedings.
Peters first raised the so-called “innocent owners” issue in district court more than 15 years ago, and the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against him in 1994. In 2007, Peters saw an opportunity to re-file the case. This time, the circuit court ruled in his favor, prompting the defendant, the Cook County State’s Attorney, to file a petition to the Supreme Court, arguing the forfeiture law is constitutional. Peters immediately accepted help from Futterman and the students through the Civil Rights and Police Accountability Project at the Clinic.
Hard Work Comes to Fruition
The Clinic students, Futterman, and Peters worked through the spring and summer writing the brief for respondents. They educated themselves on forfeiture, due process, the Fourth Amendment, and Justices’ voting histories, and reached out to other interested parties.
“We were putting together the various spokes in the larger wheel,” says Futterman. Many Law School faculty members also lent their expertise.
“The students are extremely bright and worked very hard,” says Peters. “We ended up with a much better brief and a much better chance of winning because of them.”
The team met weekly, which was a highlight for the students.
“Craig Futterman is fantastic about integrating students with substantive research assignments and also giving feedback,” said Grisel Ruiz, JD’09, a fellow at UC Davis School of Law’s Immigration Law Clinic.
In addition to Peterson, Rubenstein, and Ruiz, the other students involved were Joyce Chen, JD’09, Lisa Rachlin (now at Harvard Law School), Prerna Tomar, JD’09, and Dan Stroik (JD expected ‘11).
The Supreme Court will announce its opinion in the spring, but the case already has left a lasting impression on the students.
“If we win, it will be knowing that work that I did played a role in curbing law enforcement abuse of the civil forfeiture process,” says Petersen.
“Even if we lose, the example set by Craig and Tom—the different ways in which each of them have made a life’s practice out of using the law to protect and enforce the rights of those who are far too often denied those rights—will stick with me throughout my career.”
By Sarah Galer
