In the Supreme Court case of United States v. $8,850.00 in U.S. Currency, 461 US 553, 1983, the Supreme Court rejected the government’s claims that it was entitled to retain seized property for as long as it saw fit. It held that a pending Administrative Petition for Remission or mitigation of forfeiture cannot justify prolonged seizure of property without a meaningful judicial hearing. As a result of this case, Congress passed the Civil Asset Forfeiture Reform Act of 2000 (CAFRA), CAFRA was enacted because many in Congress had concluded that the old federal civil forfeiture statutes provided insufficient protection to the private property of innocent owners and relied on Mr. Sherman’s work in $8,850.00 as a basis for the reform legislation.