Andre Jenkins v. City of Cleveland, Ohio

I. The questions presented here centralize issues related to whether the warrantless seizure here of money for forfeiture (by local police) can be justified. While it was seized in the wake of a very minor traffic offense, here involving a car that arguably was parked illegally which may without any documentation, simply turned over to the Government for forfeiture - - thus avoiding the State’s own forfeiture procedures. Before that happened the officers learned the vehicle was owned by a convicted drug offender, and the driver (once identified) turned out to be a recently released notorious drug dealer. (See U. S. v. Jenkins, 285 F. Supp. 2d 999 [N.D. Ohio 2003]). Our thesis is that once this money was seized in the name of the State it in rem jurisdiction vested and it was this impervious to being lawfully supplanted. Indeed, this was because of the Concurrent Jurisdiction Doctrine. Here we rely on this Court’s Opinions in Penn Gen. Cas. Co. v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania ex rel. Schnader, 294 U.S. 189 (1935) and Hagan v. Lucas, 35 U.S. 400, 9 L. Ed. 470 (1836). Postured then by the belief this is so, the prime reason, indeed one of the dispositive questions here asks: Isn’t it a fact that the Cleveland Court should have invalidated any Federal Court forfeiture declaration it may have relied on. This we believe was so because the facts show there is no way any federal Court could have properly acquired jurisdiction. This follows because the State Court never