Chief Justice REHNQUIST delivered the opinion of the Court.

Petitioner was a joint owner, with her husband, of an automobile in which her husband engaged in sexual activity with a prostitute. A Michigan court ordered the automobile forfeited as a public nuisance, with no offset for her interest, notwithstanding her lack of knowledge of her husband's activity. We hold that the Michigan court order did not offend the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment or the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment.

Detroit police arrested John Bennis after observing him engaged in a sexual act with a prostitute in the automobile while it was parked on a Detroit city street. Bennis was convicted of gross indecency. The State then sued both Bennis and his wife, petitioner Tina B. Bennis, to have the car declared a public nuisance and abated as such under sections 600.3801 and 600.3825 of Michigan's Compiled Laws.

Petitioner defended against the abatement of her interest in the car on the ground that, when she entrusted her husband to use the car, she did not know that he would use it to violate Michigan's indecency law. The Wayne County Circuit Court rejected this argument, declared the car a public nuisance, and ordered the car's abatement. In reaching this disposition, the trial court judge recognized the remedial discretion he had under Michigan's case law. . . . He took into account the couple's ownership of “another automobile,” so they would not be left “without transportation.” . . . He also mentioned his authority to order the payment of one-half of the sale proceeds, after the deduction of costs, to “the innocent co-title holder.” . . . He declined to order such a division of sale proceeds in this case because of the age and value of the car (an 11-year-old Pontiac sedan recently purchased by John and Tina Bennis for $600); he commented in this regard: “[T]here's practically nothing left minus costs in a situation such as this.” . . .

[. . .]

The gravamen of petitioner's due process claim is not that she was denied notice or an opportunity to contest the abatement of her car; she was accorded both. . . . Rather, she claims she was entitled to contest the abatement by showing she did not know her husband would use it to violate Michigan's indecency law. But a long and unbroken line of cases holds that an owner's interest in property may be forfeited by reason of the use to which the property is put even though the owner did not know that it was to be put to such use.

Our earliest opinion to this effect is Justice Story's opinion for the Court in The Palmyra, . . . The Palmyra, which had been commissioned as a privateer by the King of Spain and had attacked a United States vessel, was captured by a United States warship and brought into Charleston, South Carolina, for adjudication. . . . On the Government's appeal from the Circuit Court's acquittal of the vessel, it was contended by the owner that the vessel could not be forfeited until he was convicted for the privateering. The Court rejected this contention, explaining: “The thing is here primarily considered as the offender, or rather the offense is attached primarily to the thing.” . . . In another admiralty forfeiture decision 17 years later, Justice Story wrote for the Court that in in rem admiralty proceedings “the acts of the master and crew ... bind the interest of the owner of the ship, whether he be innocent or guilty; and he impliedly submits to whatever the law denounces as a forfeiture attached to the ship by reason of their unlawful or wanton wrongs.” . . .

In Dobbins's Distillery v. United States, . . . this Court upheld the forfeiture of property used by a lessee in fraudulently avoiding federal alcohol taxes, observing: “Cases often arise where the property of the owner is forfeited on account of the fraud, neglect, or misconduct of those entrusted with its possession, care, and custody, even when the owner is otherwise without fault ... and it has always been held ... that the acts of [the possessors] bind the interest of the owner ... whether he be innocent or guilty.”

In Van Oster v. Kansas, . . . this Court upheld the forfeiture of a purchaser's interest in a car misused by the seller. Van Oster purchased an automobile from a dealer but agreed that the dealer might retain possession for use in its business. The dealer allowed an associate to use the automobile, and the associate used it for the illegal transportation of intoxicating liquor. . . . The State brought a forfeiture action pursuant to a Kansas statute, and Van Oster defended on the ground that the transportation of the liquor in the car was without her knowledge or authority. This Court rejected Van Oster's claim:

“It is not unknown or indeed uncommon for the law to visit upon the owner of property the unpleasant consequences of the unauthorized action of one to whom he has entrusted it. Much of the jurisdiction in admiralty, so much of the statute and common law of liens as enables a mere bailee to subject the bailed property to a lien, the power of a vendor of chattels in possession to sell and convey good title to a stranger, are familiar examples.... They suggest that certain uses of property may be regarded as so undesirable that the owner surrenders his control at his peril....

[. . .]

Notwithstanding this well-established authority rejecting the innocent-owner defense, petitioner argues that we should in effect overrule it by importing a culpability requirement from cases having at best a tangential relation to the “innocent owner” doctrine in forfeiture cases. She cites Foucha v. Louisiana, . . . for the proposition that a criminal defendant may not be punished for a crime if he is found to be not guilty. She also argues that our holding in Austin v. United States, . . . that the Excessive Fines Clause limits the scope of civil forfeiture judgments, “would be difficult to reconcile with any rule allowing truly innocent persons to be punished by civil forfeiture.” . . .

In Foucha the Court held that a defendant found not guilty by reason of insanity in a criminal trial could not be thereafter confined indefinitely by the State without a showing that he was either dangerous or mentally ill. Petitioner argues that our statement that in those circumstances a State has no “punitive interest” which would justify continued detention, . . . requires that Michigan demonstrate a punitive interest in depriving her of her interest in the forfeited car. But, putting aside the extent to which a forfeiture proceeding is “punishment” in the first place, Foucha did not purport to discuss, let alone overrule, The Palmyra line of cases.

In Austin, the Court held that because “forfeiture serves, at least in part, to punish the owner,” forfeiture proceedings are subject to the limitations of the Eighth Amendment's prohibition against excessive fines. . . . There was no occasion in that case to deal with the validity of the “innocent-owner defense,” other than to point out that if a forfeiture statute allows such a defense, the defense is additional evidence that the statute itself is “punitive” in motive. . . . In this case, however, Michigan's Supreme Court emphasized with respect to the forfeiture proceeding at issue: “It is not contested that this is an equitable action,” in which the trial judge has discretion to consider “alternatives [to] abating the entire interest in the vehicle.” . . .

In any event, for the reasons pointed out in Calero-Toledo and Van Oster, forfeiture also serves a deterrent purpose distinct from any punitive purpose. Forfeiture of property prevents illegal uses “both by preventing further illicit use of the [property] and by imposing an economic penalty, thereby rendering illegal behavior unprofitable.” . . . This deterrent mechanism is hardly unique to forfeiture. For instance, because Michigan also deters dangerous driving by making a motor vehicle owner liable for the negligent operation of the vehicle by a driver who had the owner's consent to use it, petitioner was also potentially liable for her husband's use of the car in violation of Michigan negligence law. . . . “The law thus builds a secondary defense against a forbidden use and precludes evasions by dispensing with the necessity of judicial inquiry as to collusion between the wrongdoer and the alleged innocent owner.” . . .

Petitioner also claims that the forfeiture in this case was a taking of private property for public use in violation of the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment, made applicable to the States by the Fourteenth Amendment. But if the forfeiture proceeding here in question did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment, the property in the automobile was transferred by virtue of that proceeding from petitioner to the State. The government may not be required to compensate an owner for property which it has already lawfully acquired under the exercise of governmental authority other than the power of eminent domain. . . .

At bottom, petitioner's claims depend on an argument that the Michigan forfeiture statute is unfair because it relieves prosecutors from the burden of separating co-owners who are complicit in the wrongful use of property from innocent co-owners. This argument, in the abstract, has considerable appeal, as we acknowledged in Goldsmith-Grant, . . . Its force is reduced in the instant case, however, by the Michigan Supreme Court's confirmation of the trial court's remedial discretion, . . . and petitioner's recognition that Michigan may forfeit her and her husband's car whether or not she is entitled to an offset for her interest in it, . . .

We conclude today, as we concluded 75 years ago, that the cases authorizing actions of the kind at issue are “too firmly fixed in the punitive and remedial jurisprudence of the country to be now displaced.” . . . The State here sought to deter illegal activity that contributes to neighborhood deterioration and unsafe streets. The Bennis automobile, it is conceded, facilitated and was used in criminal activity. Both the trial court and the Michigan Supreme Court followed our longstanding practice, and the judgment of the Supreme Court of Michigan is therefore

Affirmed.

Justice THOMAS, concurring.

I join the opinion of the Court.

Mrs. Bennis points out that her property was forfeited even though the State did not prove her guilty of any wrongdoing. The State responds that forfeiture of property simply because it was used in crime has been permitted time out of mind. It also says that it wants to punish, for deterrence and perhaps also for retributive purposes, persons who may have colluded or acquiesced in criminal use of their property, or who may at least have negligently entrusted their property to someone likely to use it for misfeasance. But, the State continues, it does not want to have to prove (or to refute proof regarding) collusion, acquiescence, or negligence.

As the Court notes, evasion of the normal requirement of proof before punishment might well seem “unfair.” Ante, at 1001. One unaware of the history of forfeiture laws and 200 years of this Court's precedent regarding such laws might well assume that such a scheme is lawless-a violation of due process. As the Court remarked 75 years ago in ruling upon a constitutional challenge to forfeiture of the property of an innocent owner:

“If the case were the first of its kind, it and its apparent paradoxes might compel a lengthy discussion to harmonize the [statute at issue] with the accepted tests of human conduct.... There is strength ... in the contention that ... [the statute at issue] seems to violate that justice which should be the foundation of the due process of law required by the Constitution.” . . .

But the Court went on to uphold the statute, based upon the historical prevalence and acceptance of similar laws. . . .

This case is ultimately a reminder that the Federal Constitution does not prohibit everything that is intensely undesirable. . . . As detailed in the Court's opinion and the cases cited therein, forfeiture of property without proof of the owner's wrongdoing, merely because it was “used” in or was an “instrumentality” of crime has been permitted in England and this country, both before and after the adoption of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. . . . Indeed, 70 years ago this Court held in Van Oster v. Kansas, . . . that an automobile used in crime could be forfeited notwithstanding the absence of any proof that the criminal use occurred with “knowledge or authority” of the owner. . . . A law of forfeiture without an exception for innocent owners, the Court said, “builds a secondary defense” for the State “against a forbidden use and precludes evasions by dispensing with the necessity of judicial inquiry as to collusion between the wrongdoer and the alleged innocent owner.” . . .

[. . .]

Improperly used, forfeiture could become more like a roulette wheel employed to raise revenue from innocent but hapless owners whose property is unforeseeably misused, or a tool wielded to punish those who associate with criminals, than a component of a system of justice. When the property sought to be forfeited has been entrusted by its owner to one who uses it for crime, however, the Constitution apparently assigns to the States and to the political branches of the Federal Government the primary responsibility for avoiding that result.

Justice GINSBURG, concurring.

I join the opinion of the Court and highlight features of the case key to my judgment.

The dissenting opinions target a law scarcely resembling Michigan's “red light abatement” prescription, as interpreted by the State's courts. First, it bears emphasis that the car in question belonged to John Bennis as much as it did to Tina Bennis. At all times he had her consent to use the car, just as she had his. . . . And it is uncontested that Michigan may forfeit the vehicle itself. . . . The sole question, then, is whether Tina Bennis is entitled not to the car, but to a portion of the proceeds (if any there be after deduction of police, prosecutorial, and court costs) as a matter of constitutional right.

Second, it was “critical” to the judgment of the Michigan Supreme Court that the nuisance abatement proceeding is an “equitable action.” . . . That means the State's Supreme Court stands ready to police exorbitant applications of the statute. It shows no respect for Michigan's high court to attribute to its members tolerance of, or insensitivity to, inequitable administration of an “equitable action.”

Nor is it fair to charge the trial court with “blatant unfairness” in the case at hand. . . . That court declined to order a division of sale proceeds, as the trial judge took pains to explain, for two practical reasons: the Bennises have “another automobile,” . . . and the age and value of the forfeited car (an 11-year-old Pontiac purchased by John and Tina Bennis for $600) left “practically nothing” to divide after subtraction of costs. . . .

Michigan, in short, has not embarked on an experiment to punish innocent third parties. . . . Nor do we condone any such experiment. Michigan has decided to deter johns from using cars they own (or co-own) to contribute to neighborhood blight, and that abatement endeavor hardly warrants this Court's disapprobation.

Justice STEVENS, with whom Justice SOUTER and Justice BREYER join, dissenting.

For centuries prostitutes have been plying their trade on other people's property. Assignations have occurred in palaces, luxury hotels, cruise ships, college dormitories, truck stops, back alleys and back seats. A profession of this vintage has provided governments with countless opportunities to use novel weapons to curtail its abuses. As far as I am aware, however, it was not until 1988 that any State decided to experiment with the punishment of innocent third parties by confiscating property in which, or on which, a single transaction with a prostitute has been consummated.

The logic of the Court's analysis would permit the States to exercise virtually unbridled power to confiscate vast amounts of property where professional criminals have engaged in illegal acts. Some airline passengers have marijuana cigarettes in their luggage; some hotel guests are thieves; some spectators at professional sports events carry concealed weapons; and some hitchhikers are prostitutes. The State surely may impose strict obligations on the owners of airlines, hotels, stadiums, and vehicles to exercise a high degree of care to prevent others from making illegal use of their property, but neither logic nor history supports the Court's apparent assumption that their complete innocence imposes no constitutional impediment to the seizure of their property simply because it provided the locus for a criminal transaction.

[. . .]

I would reverse because petitioner is entirely without responsibility for [her husband's] act. Fundamental fairness prohibits the punishment of innocent people.

The majority insists that it is a settled rule that the owner of property is strictly liable for wrongful uses to which that property is put. . . . Only three Terms ago, however, the Court surveyed the same historical antecedents and held that all of its forfeiture decisions rested, “at bottom, on the notion that the owner has been negligent in allowing his property to be misused and that he is properly punished for that negligence.” Austin v. United States, . . . According to Austin, even the hoary fiction that property was forfeitable because of its own guilt was based on the idea that “ ‘ “such misfortunes are in part owing to the negligence of the owner, and therefore he is properly punished by the forfeiture.” ’ ” . . . It is conceded that petitioner was in no way negligent in her use or entrustment of the family car. Thus, no forfeiture should have been permitted. The majority, however, simply ignores Austin 's detailed analysis of our case law without explanation or comment.

Even assuming that strict liability applies to “innocent” owners, we have consistently recognized an exception for truly blameless individuals. . . . In other contexts, we have regarded as axiomatic that persons cannot be punished when they have done no wrong. . . . I would hold now what we have always assumed: that the principle is required by due process.

The unique facts of this case demonstrate that petitioner is entitled to the protection of that rule. The subject of this forfeiture was certainly not contraband. It was not acquired with the proceeds of criminal activity and its principal use was entirely legitimate. It was an ordinary car that petitioner's husband used to commute to the steel mill where he worked. Petitioner testified that they had been married for nine years; that she had acquired her ownership interest in the vehicle by the expenditure of money that she had earned herself; that she had no knowledge of her husband's plans to do anything with the car except “come directly home from work,” as he had always done before; and that she even called “Missing Persons” when he failed to return on the night in question. . . . Her testimony is not contradicted and certainly is credible. Without knowledge that he would commit such an act in the family car, or that he had ever done so previously, surely petitioner cannot be accused of failing to take “reasonable steps” to prevent the illicit behavior. She is just as blameless as if a thief, rather than her husband, had used the car in a criminal episode.

[. . .]

Forfeiture of an innocent owner's property that plays a central role in a criminal enterprise may be justified on reasoning comparable to the basis for imposing liability on a principal for an agent's torts. Just as the risk of respondeat superior liability encourages employers to supervise more closely their employees' conduct, . . . so the risk of forfeiture encourages owners to exercise care in entrusting their property to others, . . . But the law of agency recognizes limits on the imposition of vicarious liability in situations where no deterrent function is likely to be served; for example, it exonerates the employer when the agent strays from his intended mission and embarks on a “frolic of his own.” . . . In this case, petitioner did not “entrust” the car to her husband on the night in question; he was entitled to use it by virtue of their joint ownership. There is no reason to think that the threat of forfeiture will deter an individual from buying a car with her husband-or from marrying him in the first place-if she neither knows nor has reason to know that he plans to use it wrongfully.

[. . .]

The absence of any deterrent value reinforces the punitive nature of this forfeiture law. But petitioner has done nothing that warrants punishment. She cannot be accused of negligence or of any other dereliction in allowing her husband to use the car for the wholly legitimate purpose of transporting himself to and from his job. She affirmatively alleged and proved that she is not in any way responsible for the conduct that gave rise to the seizure. If anything, she was a victim of that conduct. In my opinion, these facts establish that the seizure constituted an arbitrary deprivation of property without due process of law.

[. . .]

Justice KENNEDY, dissenting.

The forfeiture of vessels pursuant to the admiralty and maritime law has a long, well-recognized tradition, evolving as it did from the necessity of finding some source of compensation for injuries done by a vessel whose responsible owners were often half a world away and beyond the practical reach of the law and its processes. . . . The prospect of deriving prompt compensation from in rem forfeiture, and the impracticality of adjudicating the innocence of the owners or their good-faith efforts in finding a diligent and trustworthy master, combined to eliminate the owner's lack of culpability as a defense. . . .

[. . .]

This forfeiture cannot meet the requirements of due process. Nothing in the rationale of the Michigan Supreme Court indicates that the forfeiture turned on the negligence or complicity of petitioner, or a presumption thereof, and nothing supports the suggestion that the value of her co-ownership is so insignificant as to be beneath the law's protection.

For these reasons, and with all respect, I dissent.