Krimstock hearing

A Krimstock hearing is an administrative law proceeding that offers vehicle owners the opportunity to recover possession of a vehicle confiscated by the New York City Police Department (NYPD) during an arrest.^[1][2] Police have authority to impound vehicles used as an instrument of a crime, and later to seek permanent ownership of these vehicles in civil forfeiture actions.^[1] Such forfeiture actions, like the Krimstock administrative hearings, are entirely separate from any criminal charges the vehicle owner may face stemming from his or her arrest.^[1]

At the hearing, the NYPD must demonstrate (1) that it followed proper procedure in arresting the person and taking the vehicle, (2) that it is likely to win the civil forfeiture action, and (3) that returning the vehicle would cause a danger to the public.^[3] If the NYPD fails to demonstrate one of these three things, the vehicle is returned to its owner pending the outcome of the separate civil forfeiture action.^[3]

The Krimstock hearing process was ordered into creation by the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in a 2002 opinion authored by Judge Sonia Sotomayor (who later became a justice of the U.S. Supreme Court).^[4] The hearings are remarkable because they are a recent example of an entirely new, judicially created, procedural due process right.^[4] The hearings are conducted by the New York City Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings (OATH) and presided over by New York City administrative law judges.^[1] In 2003, the New York State Court of Appeals mandated that similar hearings be conducted in Nassau County, Long Island.^[5]