The concept of common-law forfeiture does not exist in Pennsylvania and the state government has no legal basis, absent statutory authority, for seizing so-called derivative contraband, the Commonwealth Court en banc has ruled.
“Based upon our research, the commonwealth’s organic law, namely Article 9, Sections 18 and 19 of the Pennsylvania Constitution of 1790, denounces and effectively abolishes any notion of common law forfeiture and that the predominate, if not unanimous, weight of the authority has determined that common law forfeiture never made it across the seas to America,” the unanimous court said Jan. 13 in Commonwealth v. Irland, reversing an Adams County trial judge’s ruling.
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