Jones v. Flowers, 547 U.S. 220 (2006), was a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States involving the due process requirement that a state give notice to an owner before selling his property to satisfy his unpaid taxes. The Court ruled, 5-3, that after a mailed notice was returned unclaimed, a state was required by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to take additional reasonable steps to notify the owner before the sale could proceed. The Court's opinion was delivered by Chief Justice John G. Roberts, his fourth majority opinion after his confirmation to the Court in 2005 and his first to provoke any dissenting opinions. The Court had last addressed the issue of notice in Dusenbery v. United States, which held that the government need only take steps reasonably calculated to provide notice even if actual notice is not achieved. The four justices who dissented in Dusenbery formed the majority with Roberts in Jones v. Flowers, distinguishing the prior case on the basis that the government in Dusenbery did not know that its method of notice had failed before the taking occurred. Justice Clarence Thomas, in dissent, believed the Court was instead undermining Dusenbery, which he argued implicitly dictated a result contrary to the majority's decision. Background Tax delinquency and sale In 1967, Gary Jones purchased a house in Little Rock, Arkansas, in which he lived with his wife until they separated in 1993. Jones then moved into an apartment in Little Rock, and his wife continued to live in the house. Jones paid his mortgage each month for 30 years, and the mortgage company paid Jones' property taxes. However, after Jones paid off his mortgage in 1997, his wife failed to pay the property taxes, and the property was certified as delinquent. In April 2000, Mark Wilcox, the Arkansas Commissioner of State Lands, attempted to notify Jones of his tax delinquency, and his right to redeem the property, by mailing a certified letter to Jones at the house. The packet of information stated that unless Jones redeemed the property, it would be subject to public sale two years later on April 17, 2002. Nobody was home to sign for the letter, and nobody appeared at the post office to retrieve the letter within the next 15 days. The post office returned the unopened packet to the Commissioner marked "unclaimed." Two years later, and just