One 1958 Plymouth Sedan v. Pennsylvania

One 1958 Plymouth Sedan v. Pennsylvania, 380 U.S. 693 (1965), was a Supreme Court of the United States case handed down in 1965. The Court ruled that civil forfeiture could not apply where the evidence used to invoke the forfeiture was obtained illegally.

One 1958 Plymouth Sedan v. Pennsylvania
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued March 31, 1965 Decided April 29, 1965
Full case name	One 1958 Plymouth Sedan v. Pennsylvania
Citations	380 U.S. 693 (more) 85 S. Ct. 1246; 14 L. Ed. 2d 170
Holding
Civil forfeiture could not apply when the evidence was illegally obtained.
Court membership
Chief Justice Earl Warren Associate Justices Hugo Black · William O. Douglas Tom C. Clark · John M. Harlan II William J. Brennan Jr. · Potter Stewart Byron White · Arthur Goldberg
Case opinions
Majority	Goldberg, joined by Warren, Douglas, Clark, Harlan, Brennan, Stewart, White
Concurrence	Black

Some police officers followed the suspect vehicle, and pulled over the car because it was "riding low". Without a warrant, they searched the trunk and found untaxed liquor. The car was seized, and the state also attempted to confiscate the automobile in question as a civil penalty. The Court ruled unanimously that the Fourth Amendment's protection against unreasonable searches and seizures, held applicable to the states by the Fourteenth Amendment, applies to civil actions by the states as well as criminal ones, noting that one could be subject to an even worse penalty in a civil proceeding, where the value of the items being forfeited might be more than the maximum possible fine in a criminal case.

The form of the styling of this case—the plaintiff being an object, rather than a legal person—is because this is a jurisdiction in rem (power over objects) case, rather than the more familiar in personam (over persons) case.