Brenda Jeffrey v. West Virginia

Federal and state courts are in conflict regarding the federal due process rights that property owners possess to challenge forfeiture of their possessions, related both to crimes charged in criminal proceedings and in the civil-forfeiture setting. In this case, the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia effectively held that these property owners are owed no process at all. Petitioner Brenda Jeffrey was charged under a West Virginia criminal statute, W. Va. Code. § 19-20-20, with harboring a “vicious” animal, her beloved family pet and then-puppy, Jasper. Thereafter, in the course of criminal proceedings against her, Ms. Jeffrey was continually denied meaningful participation in her own case to challenge the State’s attempts to seize and euthanize Jasper, even though the only mechanism for the state to do so under state law was unquestionably Ms. Jeffrey’s own criminal proceedings, and even though the State agreed that Ms. Jeffrey was the proper party to raise any such challenges. At present, with all state review exhausted, Jasper remains in confinement and his life depends on the outcome of this matter in this Court. The question presented is: whether, under the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause, a state can seize and later permanently deprive a defendant of her property, an animal in this case, through proceedings from which the defendant is excluded from any meaningful participation.