What is the test for civil forfeiture?
The following excerpt is from People v. Vasquez, 655 N.Y.S.2d 870, 678 N.E.2d 482, 89 N.Y.2d 521 (N.Y. 1997):
"[f]orfeitures serve a variety of purposes, but are designed primarily to confiscate property used in violation of the law, and to require disgorgement of the fruits of illegal conduct. Though it may be possible to quantify the values of the property forfeited, it is virtually impossible to quantify, even approximately, the nonpunitive purposes served by a particular civil forfeiture. Hence, it is practically difficult to determine whether a particular forfeiture bears no rational relationship to the nonpunitive purposes of that forfeiture. Quite simply, the case-by-case balancing test set forth in Halper, in which a court must compare the harm suffered by the Government against the size of the penalty imposed, is inapplicable to civil forfeiture." (United States v. Ursery, supra, 518 U.S., at ----, 116 S.Ct., at 2145.)
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