This morning, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the constitutional prohibition on excessive fines applies to states and localities as well. Justice Ginsburg delivered the opinion of the court while Justice Gorsuch, and Justice Thomas wrote concurring opinions.
This ruling is a major win for civil liberties organizations that have been working to curtail the practice of civil asset forfeiture. Civil asset forfeiture is often used by the federal government, states, and localities as a means of creating an additional funding source.
According to the Harvard Law Review, “the Justice and Treasury departments alone received nearly $4.5 billion in forfeiture proceeds in 2014; individual states have taken in as much as $46”. This is a multi-billion dollar practice on which this new ruling will have a significant impact.
The case came to the Supreme Court from the Supreme Court of Indiana who ruled that the forfeiture of a $42,000 Land Rover from Tyson Timbs after he pleaded guilty to dealing in controlled substances and conspiring to commit theft. He had purchased the vehicle with life insurance money from the death of his father, not with money generated from illegal activity, but the state used a private law firm to bring suit against him for forfeiture of the vehicle in order to cover fines and costs totaling $1,203. In this case, the maximum total fees and fines that could have been accessed were 10,000, far less than the Land Rover. Because of this, the fine was excessive if the clause were to apply to states and localities.
The Indiana Supreme Court ruled that this forfeiture was not a violation of the excessive fines clause of the 8th amendment because this was not applicable to state and local enforcement. This ruling was a reversal of an appeals court decision that the forfeiture was a violation of the clause.
In her second day back on the bench following cancer surgery in December, Justice Ginsburg wrote the opinion for the court in which she traced the history of excessive fines protection, and extolled the benefit of such protections for protecting other essential liberty:
“Protection against excessive fines has been a constant shield throughout Anglo-American history for good reason: Such fines undermine other liberties. They can be used, e.g., to retaliate against or chill the speech of political enemies. They can also be employed, not in service of penal purposes, but as a source of revenue. The historical and logical case for concluding that the Fourteenth Amendment incorporates the Excessive Fines Clause is indeed overwhelming.”
The Court held that the due process clause of the 14th amendment incorporates the excessive fines clause of the 8th amendment, thereby providing protection from state imposition of excessive fines.
Today the Supreme Court made an important distinction regarding the ability of states to seize property from citizens which will likely have serious implications for civil asset forfeiture moving forward.
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