U.S. Supreme Court Puts Limits on Police Power to Seize Private Property

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/20/us/politics/civil-asset-forfeiture-supreme-court.html

by ComputerGuru • 7 years ago

1426 412 7 years ago

A swipe against excessive civil forfeitures succeeds. These aggressive actions require citizens to forfeit property far in excess of any harm committed. In the court case, a man had his car seized when caught selling a few hundred dollars of heroine.

We have laws to punish illegal behavior, but it’s not right that all your property get snatched up too. The most egregious of these cases often involve no due process at all. People who are stopped and found to have large amounts of cash simply have it seized, even if they are never charged with a crime.

Recourse is often slow and expensive. It’s unlikely that this ruling will immediately change the rampant unconstitutional practices many police departments and towns rely on. But it is a step in the right direction. Hopefully, they will be taken to task in time.

borkt• 7 years ago

It gets even more interesting when they are federal but not state crimes. In this case, officers from a relatively far away jurisdiction were seizing cash and cannabis from people following all state and local rules. Just one of the individuals was awarded 1.2 million last week. If this ruling applies to all previous cases police departments are going to go broke paying this back.

laws.https://www.kqed.org/news/11706921/lawsuit-rohnert-park-hopl...

olliej• 7 years ago

Also the maximum fine for the offense is $10k, and he was given $1200 in fines. Yet a $42k car was taken.

That was 4x the maximum penalty, and almost 20x the fine. How that was ever legal remains confusing to me.

gowld4• 7 years ago

It wasn't legal; that's what this case is about.

The authorities sometimes break laws.

mc322• 7 years ago

This was long overdue. I’m all for restitution and such, but doing forfeiture above what the penalty or fine would have been is obviously egregiously problematic.

Glad this overreach was rectified but it took a good while to get corrected.

fencepost2• 7 years ago

Possibly relevant is also that the car was purchased with (presumably documented) legitimate money - received from his father's life insurance policy. The reasoning was apparently that he used the vehicle in committing the crime, not that he'd purchased it with money derived from criminal activity.

wool_gather2• 7 years ago

This is 100% relevant, since the "tainted" nature of the money gained from criminal activity is one of the justifications for seizure.

Theodores2• 7 years ago

In the court case, a man had his car seized when caught selling a few hundred dollars of heroine.

Interesting perspective there. Some people think that heroin dealers deserve to be fully hung, drawn and quartered, their head placed on a spike to be pecked at by the crows.

Others might think that 'it was just a bit of dope, why should he have to forfeit anything for that?'.

The car is potentially proceeds of crime it also enables the crime of dealing to be carried out. A reasonable case for him forfeiting it can definitely be made without that being the police preying off the 'victim'. In the UK any police action that leads to people losing stuff as it is deemed proceeds of crime goes to the crown, i.e. the queen, rather than to the local police department. In the USA you need something similar so that the police can't be accused of being on the take.

pixl972• 7 years ago

The car is potentially proceeds of crime

Then the state must prove that case rather than it being in implicit assumption.

larkeith• 7 years ago

The car is potentially proceeds of crime

The car was reliably documented as being purchased from his father's life insurance proceeds. There was no question of it being potentially purchased by illegal means.

Far more importantly, the entire question is irrelevant: we have standardized maximum fines and the burden of proof for very good reasons. Civil forfeiture skips both, making a mockery of the justice system for profit.

Those who believe current punishments for a given crime insufficient should seek to alter the law, whereas exorbitant forfeiture devalues the entire purpose - it serves neither as effective discouragement (being utterly arbitrary and unrelated to criminal magnitude) nor to rehabilitate (rather, the reverse, as departing inmates' tendencies to return will only be exacerbated by forfeiture-induced poverty).

jpindar• 7 years ago

it also enables the crime of dealing to be carried out

His hands also enabled the crime to be carried out, should they be chopped off?

gowld4• 7 years ago

This case was about criminal forfeiture, not civil forfeiture. The aggrieved was convicted of crime, and the forfeiture was a fine for that.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_forfeiture_in_the_United_States#Civil_versus_criminal_forfeiture

orblivion2• 7 years ago

Hmm, seems like the 8th amendment doesn't apply to civil forfeiture at all, and this ruling would do nothing for it. Civil I guess sounds like a 4th amendment case.

Is that about right?

EDIT: Also you should tell the New York Times. "Criminal forfeiture" does not appear in the article, though "civil forfeiture" does.

gamblor9569• 7 years ago

This case was actually about civil forfeiture, not criminal forfeiture.

If it had been criminal forfeiture, they would have had to show the SUV was purchased using drug money proceeds. Instead, they pursued the civil forfeiture path because it has a lower standard of evidence (more likely than not rather that beyond a reasonable doubt). See page 1 of the opinion, which explicitly states the case is about civil forfeiture...https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/18pdf/17-1091_5536.pdf)

qrbLPHiKpiux2• 7 years ago

What is scary is that something like the Patriot Act can be signed in overnight and something like this will take decades.

lostapathy4• 7 years ago

The interesting thing, though, is that once a civil right is established and incorporated against the states, it's basically unassailable under our system. So while it takes a long time to get those rights properly enshrined, at least they seem to be safe.

zackmorris• 7 years ago

That's generally true, although forces today are trying to dismantle the Bill of Rights to suit their own agendas:

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/02/clarence-thomas-...

dsfyu404ed4• 7 years ago

So while it takes a long time to get those rights properly enshrined, at least they seem to be safe.

Our rights are so unassailable that I need to repeatedly pay a non-negligible amount of money to the government bear arms and get the approval of my local police chief if I want said arms to be reasonably modern. /s

Some animals are more equal than others. Some rights are more unassailable than others. At least I can bitch about it on the internet and nobody's quartering troops in my home (edit: yet).

x2202• 7 years ago

The NSA regularly violates the fourth amendment and never gets punished for it. How are those civil rights working out for you in practice in the US? How's the 10th amendment working out?

downandout• 7 years ago

It will be interesting to see exactly how this ruling is applied in the field. My guess is that not much will change, as the most problematic and widespread applications of civil forfeiture don’t involve a crime where a monetary fine would be allowed as a penalty. Rather, the police simply steal (they prefer the term “seize,” but it’s just stealing) the money/assets claiming that they suspect it to be the fruit of a crime, then hope the person they stole it from does not have the resources necessary to hire an attorney to recover it. Charges are not filed, and in the majority of cases, the victims never get the money back.

IANAL, but at first glance it seems that such cases would be unaffected by this ruling. No fine is being imposed that could be considered excessive under this ruling - the person is simply failing to claim their property.

rtkwe4• 7 years ago

It seems like those cases should be because if there's no crime filed against a person related to the case there's no fine to assess in the first place so any 'fine' (read asset forfeiture) is excessive because it's >$0. Very much not a lawyer but the logic seems to hold.

The whole asset forfeiture without any charges being filed always seemed really sketchy because in the end you're still taking assets from a person (so long as they're claimed, eg maybe if they find a pile of money in an abandoned drug lab a seizure would be valid if no one comes forward saying it's theirs at which point they should charge the person with crimes and seize the money after trial).

fhrow4484• 7 years ago

My guess is that not much will change, as the most problematic and widespread applications of civil forfeiture don’t involve a crime where a monetary fine would be allowed as a penalty

IANAL, but I see 2 reasonings:

If seizing $40000 for <insert any crime/infraction, like going 5MPH over the speed limit, where max penalty is let's say $1000>, wouldn't it be excessive if it's seized for doing absolutely Nothing (suspicion of a crime: max penalty = 0 jail, $0 fine) ?

And more specific to your point: if maximum penalty for a crime only involves jail time and $0 of maximum fine, wouldn't any seizure of cash/property be excessive since it's far larger than $0?

whatshisface• 7 years ago

Justice Thomas agreed with the result in the case, Timbs v. Indiana, No. 17-1091, but said he would have gotten to the same place by a different route. While the majority relied on the due process clause of the 14th Amendment, Justice Thomas said he would have ruled “the right to be free from excessive fines is one of the ‘privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States’ protected by the 14th Amendment.”

I was going to comment that the real biggest legal problem with civil forfeiture is how it circumvents due process, but it sounds like that was the actual ruling given by the supreme court. I think the title of the article disagrees with the last paragraph. It was actually Justice Thomas who wanted to rule that it constituted excessive punishment, while the rest of the court ruled that it constituted a breach of due process.

ls612• 7 years ago

That’s not quite right. The Bill of Rights originally only applied to the federal government, until after the civil war when the 14th amendment was passed. Since then the clause in that amendment saying no one can be deprived of life or liberty without due process has been interpreted to mean most of the bill of rights also applies to the states. This ruling said as much for the 8th amendment prohibitions on excessive fines.

Thomas just wanted to use a different clause of the 14th amendment to achieve the same outcome.

runako• 7 years ago

Thomas just wanted to use a different clause of the 14th amendment to achieve the same outcome.

Do you read anything into this? Is there a reason a justice would prefer to highlight the excessive fines provision over the due process protections?

colmmacc2• 7 years ago

As a permanent resident who lives in the US, the idea that basic protections of law should only apply to citizens is terrifying. It's not the same outcome at all. Due process is afforded to "persons".

OnlyOneCannolo• 7 years ago

For the curious, this is called the "incorporation doctrine".

dragonwriter17• 7 years ago

Thomas just wanted to use a different clause of the 14th amendment to achieve the same outcome.

It's the same outcome in this case, but it is rather different in the broader effect; not all people subject to punishment by states are citizens of the US.

basch• 7 years ago

It's actually a different part of the same sentence.

"No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

rukittenme2• 7 years ago

In the WSJ article[0], RBG appears to agree explicitly with Thomas as well.

0. https://www.wsj.com/articles/supreme-court-rules-against-exc...

eco2• 7 years ago

Justice Thomas has been fighting a long battle trying to restore the Privileges or Immunities Clause of the 14th amendment after it was effectively removed from the constitution in the Slaughter-House Cases. He'll often issue dissents or concurrences just to raise the issue of the Privileges or Immunities Clause.

The Institute For Justice (who argued this case, somewhat coincidentally) has a podcast about the 14th Amendment called Bound By Oath. They talk in depth about the Slaughter-House Cases and The Privileges or Immunities Clause in the third episode if anyone is interested in learning more.

xxpor3• 7 years ago

Of course using the P&I clause has important implications.

Here's a twitter thread about it: https://twitter.com/MDAppeal/status/1098244852721115136

Tl;dr It means that the incorporation only applies to CITIZENS, not persons. So citizens united wouldn't apply to the states, but neither would the bill of rights to non-naturalized immigrants with regards to the states.

btown• 7 years ago

Background on the Slaughterhouse Cases: https://www.thirteen.org/wnet/supremecourt/antebellum/landma...

dragonwriter17• 7 years ago

No, the rest of the court found the the excessive punishment protection of the eighth amendment was applied to the states through the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment as an essential right and therefore a component of “liberty” as used in the due process clause.

Thomas disagrees with this fairly conventional incorporation argument and the idea of the protection as a fundamental right, but feels instead that a protection against excessive fines is part of the “privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States”. This distinction isn't merely semantic, though the end result in the present case is the same: under the majority view, the prohibition against excessive fines is a limitation on state government in all cases; in Thomas's view, it would not be a limit if the target of the state action were not a US citizen, since noncitizens necessarily do not enjoy the privileges and immunities of citizens.

All of the justices view it as excessive punishment, Thomas just thinks only US citizens are protected by the federal Constitution against excessive punishment by state governments, whereas the majority thinks states are Constitutionally prohibited from inflicting excessive punishment on people.

mehrdadn3• 7 years ago

noncitizens necessarily do not enjoy the privileges and immunities of citizens.

Would you have more reading on this? It's something I've wondered about but never really come across a comprehensive answer to. What rights do noncitizens not have that citizens do?

aqme28• 7 years ago

The constitution really clearly delineates between "persons" and "citizens." I hate the notion that none of the protections apply to noncitizens.

Additionally, a lot of the constitution is actually phrased as limits on the government rather than rights as citizens.

jhayward2• 7 years ago

Note also that corporations are 'people' but not 'citizens' and would likewise be disenfranchised from the protections provided by the bill of rights and the constitution when it came to state law.

edit: there seems to be some lawyering about the difference between the meaning of 'people' and 'persons' that I do not understand at this time.

int_19h12• 7 years ago

This distinction isn't merely semantic, though the end result in the present case is the same: under the majority view, the prohibition against excessive fines is a limitation on state government in all cases; in Thomas's view, it would not be a limit if the target of the state action were not a US citizen, since noncitizens necessarily do not enjoy the privileges and immunities of citizens.

That's the outcome, but I don't think that's the intent. The reason why Thomas wanted to go via the Privileges Clause rather than the Due Process Clause is because he represents a faction in jurisprudence that believes that the latter was historically inappropriately used in lieu of the Privileges or Immunities Clause in general.

If you dig into the history of that argument, it does kinda make sense - we have plain language in 14A speaking about states not allowed to deny rights to citizens, and we have historical record of the intent behind it. The reason why it's not used as intended is because in the infamous Slaughter-House Cases, SCOTUS essentially ruled it to be a nullity. Later, when the pendulum swung towards instead of reverting that decision and giving teeth to the Privileges or Immunities Clause, they made an elaborate construct of substantive due process from the Due Process Clause to allow for incorporation without a reversal.

The mainstream argument is that it's good enough, and that trying to revive the Privileges or Immunities Clause is simply not worth it - which is why it hasn't been referenced by SCOTUS in decisions for a long time. Nevertheless, there have always been judges that believe it to be wrong, and those judges would supply minority opinions referencing it. This generally correlates with textualism (and hence opposition to substantive due process, which is an inherently anti-textualist notion) - which is the case for Thomas as well - but is not limited to that crowd.

acchow• 7 years ago

privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States

So resident aliens are not protected?

ozzyman700• 7 years ago

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/18pdf/17-1091_5536.pdf

Here is the ruling in full if anyone is interested.

binarymax• 7 years ago

Please don't editorialize the title. It should be "Supreme Court Puts Limits on Police Power to Seize Private Property"

ceejayoz4• 7 years ago

I think the NYT updated the title. Unfortunately, http://newsdiffs.org/ seems to be broken right now.

rc_kas• 7 years ago

Holy cow, what a website. Those people are saints for running that website.

ThrustVectoring2• 7 years ago

Non-paywalled press release from the Institute for Justice, who worked on this case as part of their mission to fight civil forfeiture: https://ij.org/press-release/u-s-supreme-court-rules-unanimo...

chapium• 7 years ago

"Ruling Requires Cities and States—Not Just the Federal Government— To Abide by the Eighth Amendment’s Excessive Fines Clause"

Wow, this is pretty big. They just extended constitutional protection of this clause to lower levels of government.

duxup• 7 years ago

It seems to be a pattern where protections aren't extended until a state or some government gets silly and the courts just decide that it is absurd to not have the same protection at that level and extends it.

ceejayoz4• 7 years ago

Yeah, that's interesting. The Fourteenth Amendment clearly applies to states; less so to cities/towns. Seems like SCOTUS is coming solidly down on the "of course they meant any level of government, folks".

lostapathy4• 7 years ago

For anyone who wants to read/learn more - the concept here is called "incorporation" - as in, the specified right is "incorporated against the states"

The 14th amendment made this possible, but until the supreme court actually rules on a given right, there's no case law to compel states to treat the right that way.

Another relatively recent example of this is McDonald v Chicago that incorporated the 2nd amendment against the states.

pdq• 7 years ago

To those that want to support the Institute for Justice, they are a 501(c)3 non-profit accepting donations [1].

It's my favorite charity, whose missions include protection of private property, economic liberty, and the first amendment; and their results speak for themselves.

[1] https://ij.org/about-us

gnicholas• 7 years ago

Dupe of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19209206

dang• 7 years ago

You're right, but that article is somehow more narrowly scoped, which probably explains why this one got upvoted so quickly. Given that difference, maybe we'll keep this one.

Splendor2• 7 years ago

This article has left me confused. Does this mean civil forfeiture is unconstitutional? Or just that it can only be used if it does not constitute an "excessive" fine?

lallysingh• 7 years ago

Only if it's not excessive.

Splendor2• 7 years ago

How disappointing. This leaves individuals forced to prove that a fine was excessive after police have already seized their property.

shkkmo2• 7 years ago

TLDR;

The trial court ruled that seizing the Land Rover constituted an excessive fine under the 8th ammendment, so was not protected.

The state supreme court ruled that the US supreme court had never said that the 8th amendment applies to state governments.

The US supreme court just said "Ok, now it does"

Now state trial court judges can use the 8th amendment to deny civil forfeiture attempts. It also now serves as a basis to appeal civil forfeiture rulings.

While this seems like a positive ruling, all it does is extend the rules that cover the federal government to the states. Given the abuses of the federal governement, I don't see much hope for this ruling changing anything.

sbr4642• 7 years ago

Listen and read the oral argument here (oyez):

—edited, correct case:

https://apps.oyez.org/player/#/roberts10/oral_argument_audio...

kzrdude• 7 years ago

The date is 1993, so it seems to be an older case?

sbr4642• 7 years ago

Corrected, thanks.

rtkwe4• 7 years ago

Hmm I wonder how this will affect the other civil forfeiture practice of charging the item itself with the crime (eg: "United States v. $124,700 in U.S. Currency" [0]) where the owner of the property is never actually charged with a crime. Maybe this will stop that because without a conviction any fine could be considered excessive?

The logic behind these cases has always baffled me. How do courts get around due process requirements of seizing claimed property like that?

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._$124,700_in_U...

nukemandan• 7 years ago

Thanks for this - no idea that this was even remotely a possibility in law...

phonon2• 7 years ago

It means Austin (below) would now apply for state/local cases.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/509/602

1. Forfeiture under §§ 881(a)(4) and (a)(7) is a monetary punishment and, as such, is subject to the limitations of the Excessive Fines Clause. Pp. 2804-12.

(a) The determinative question is not, as the Government would have it, whether forfeiture under §§ 881(a)(4) and (a)(7) is civil or criminal. The Eighth Amendment's text is not expressly limited to criminal cases, and its history does not require such a limitation. Rather, the crucial question is whether the forfeiture is monetary punishment, with which the Excessive Fines Clause is particularly concerned. Because sanctions frequently serve more than one purpose, the fact that a forfeiture serves remedial goals will not exclude it from the Clause's purview, so long as it can only be explained as serving in part to punish. See United States v. Halper, 490 U.S. 435, 448, 109 S.Ct. 1892, 1901, 104 L.Ed.2d 487. Thus, consideration must be given to whether, at the time the Eighth Amendment was ratified, forfeiture was understood at least in part as punishment and whether forfeiture under § 881(a)(4) and (a)(7) should be so understood today. Pp. 2804-06.

(b) A review of English and American law before, at the time of, and following the ratification of the Eighth Amendment demonstrates that forfeiture generally and statutory in rem forfeiture in particular historically have been understood, at least in part, as punishment. See, e.g., Peisch v. Ware, 8 U.S. (4 Cranch) 347, 364, 2 L.Ed. 643. The same understanding runs through this Court's cases rejecting the "innocence" of the owner as a common-law defense to forfeiture. See, e.g., Calero-Toledo v. Pearson Yacht Leasing Co., 416 U.S. 663, 683, 686, 687, 94 S.Ct. 2080, 2091, 2093, 2094, 40 L.Ed.2d 452. Pp. 2806-10.

(c) Forfeitures under §§ 881(a)(4) and (a)(7) are properly consideed punishment today, since nothing in these provisions contradicts the historical understanding, since both sections clearly focus on the owner's culpability by expressly providing "innocent owner" defenses and by tying forfeiture directly to the commission of drug offenses, and since the legislative history confirms that Congress understood the provisions as serving to deter and to punish. Thus, even assuming that the sections serve some remedial purpose, it cannot be concluded that forfeiture under the sections serves only that purpose. Pp. 2810-12.

2. The Court declines to establish a test for determining whether a forfeiture is constitutionally "excessive," since prudence dictates that the lower courts be allowed to consider that question in the first instance. P. 2812.

rtkwe4• 7 years ago

So from the sound of that it seems like civil asset forfeiture without charges filed or judgments rendered against a person should be dead in the water legally right? Because under this ruling any forfeiture under §§ 881(a) would be considered a punishment and there's a right to due process before punishment correct?

sbuttgereit2• 7 years ago

This specific case was taken and argued by the Institute for Justice (https://ij.org), a civil liberties legal charity, that has a goal of addressing exactly this problem.

The original civil forfeiture practices were put in place at the height of "the war on drugs" in the 80's as I recall. The rationale was you had drug dealer types that were successfully evading prosecution on the tougher criminal standards of proof while also flaunting the wealth they obtained from their drug related businesses. So the idea was you could have a civil process with a lower standard of proof than the criminal ones with which could punish them.

Of course, as the old saying goes, "the path to hell is paved with good intentions." and you get cases like this or worse even.

I contribute to the Institute for Justice for just this reason.

dragonwriter17• 7 years ago

The original civil forfeiture practices were put in place at the height of "the war on drugs" in the 80's as I recall.

No, they were in admiralty/customs law and predate the US, but came along with the body of law the US kept at it's founding.

There was some new activity around Prohibition.

Then big activity starting in 1970 around the drug war.

(That's for federal civil forfeiture, while state level civil forfeiture has the same pre-US history, the later evolution varies by state.)

exabrial• 7 years ago

Thank goodness. Overly aggressive local, state, and national prosecutors need a reality check.

jedberg• 7 years ago

My favorite site on Supreme Court cases: https://www.oyez.org/cases/2018/17-1091

Sadly they haven't updated with the decision yet.

burtonator• 7 years ago

What's frustrating here is that so much of our government depends on actual case law.

This it's possible for massive injustice to happen for decades before we have a resolution.

This is one of the reasons technology can be so frightening because there's no case law and the rate of technology is exponential which means there is the potential for GREAT evil to happen without any resolution except to fight it out and get it in front of the Supreme course.

repiret2• 7 years ago

The alternative to case law is that ambiguities in the statute are interpreted differently each time. Being subject to the law, I would much rather live in a system designed to automatically reduce ambiguities over time, rather than to have to wait for the legislature to have the political will and resources to address them.

bitwize2• 7 years ago

The USA is a common-law jurisdiction which means that convention and "how things were always done" have outsized significance when compared to civil-law jurisdictions like much of western Europe. Civil-law jurisdictions tend to rely more on statute, but they also have legislatures that can actually get things done, rather than cultivate this bogus adversarial relationship between the people and the government wherein the government is obstructed or hindered from getting all but the most critical and unanimously supported things done.

jrockway• 7 years ago

The executive branch can also help here. Someone can run for district attorney, say "my office won't use civil forfeiture", and it's gone.

What is scary is that that's not the platform people run on, or win elections by running on.

naasking• 7 years ago

This is one of the reasons technology can be so frightening because there's no case law and the rate of technology is exponential which means there is the potential for GREAT evil to happen without any resolution

Problems caused by tech often have tech solutions as well. I think it's a mistake to assume the justice system is the best place to address "evil". More evil and injustice is addressed by individuals, innovation and grass roots movements than the courts.

gumby4• 7 years ago

What's frustrating here is that so much of our government depends on actual case law.

I'm not sure what's so frustrating about this in principle. It moderates a rush to judgment and lets people work out details, corner cases and flaws of laws.

There's nothing stopping legislatures changing statutes in response to court cases.

(This is not meant as a defense of civil forfeiture which I consider an abomination).

Isamu• 7 years ago

Good thing, it only took about 35 years or so. This was one of legacies of the glorious War On Drugs.

arenaninja• 7 years ago

I guess my thinking is how does this affect the funding for Trump's wall. IIRC about $2.5billion was supposed to come from DoD drug seizures... this case seems highly relevant

moate• 7 years ago

It likely doesn't.

My assumption would be that those seizures would have already had to pass the constitutional muster because they were federal cases. This is simply the SC stating that they interpret the constitution as being the law of the land, and that the states can't be more punitive than the feds. That money will still be there.

dmitrygr• 7 years ago

Best part is Gorsuch's half-page long concurring opinion which places Indiana in its place with a wonderful last sentence: "But nothing in this case turns on that question, and, regardless of the precise vehicle, there can be no serious doubt that the Fourteenth Amendment requires the States to respect the freedom from excessive fines enshrined in the Eighth Amendment. "

Thomas is not far behind with: " As a constitutionally enumerated right understood to be a privilege of American citizenship, the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on excessive fines applies in full to the States. "

AnimalMuppet3• 7 years ago

This is good.

Even better: It's a unanimous decision. The Supreme Court is not even close to thinking that this was OK.

(Yes, Thomas agreed with the decision, though he wanted to state that he got there by a different route. That's not bad - it gives two distinct reasons why the ruling is correct, which is better than just one.)

TomMckenny• 7 years ago

The court had, however, previously ruled that most protections under the Bill of Rights apply to the states
...the Indiana Supreme Court ruled against Mr. Timbs, saying that the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition of excessive fines did not apply to ones imposed by states.

Does anyone know which rights people assume they have but don't because the protection only applies on the federal level?

tarjm• 7 years ago

The 3rd (quartering of soldiers) and 7th (jury trial for civil cases) Amendments have not been incorporated at all, as well as parts of the 5th (Grand Jury indictment) and 6th (jury from the location of the crime).

https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/incorporation_doctrine

dsfyu404ed4• 7 years ago

It's probably a good thing that the 6th isn't incorporated since in low profile cases the prosecution does the trial locally and in high profile cases they taint the jury pool by repeating their side of the story day after day in the media.

acheron• 7 years ago

The 3rd was incorporated against the State of New York by the Second Circuit court of appeals, it just has never reached the Supreme Court.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engblom_v._Carey

dba7dba• 7 years ago

What I'd like to know is if private property that was seized in the past will be returned?

One of my friend's dad had a hip surgery and was bed bound for a few weeks. The family had to be at work so they hired a live in helper who was an older woman in her 60s.

This older woman's story was a tragic one to hear.

She had immigrated from Asia to US with her husband and family and had managed to buy a 3bed house. Well life happened and they ended up divorcing in her 60s, and she ended up as owner of the house.

With no income and no real skill, she rented out rooms in her house to pay bills. One renter was a drug dealer. When he was arrested, somehow the lady was dragged into the case and she ended up losing the house to the police, due to this seizure of private property. This was the first time I heard about such practices.

With no house and no other choices, she had to turn to working as a live-in-helper to avoid becoming homeless.

I hope all properties seized through such cases are returned.

moftz2• 7 years ago

The landlord is supposed to proceed with eviction if a crime occurs on their property. The police will even tell the landlord that if they don't evict, they will seize the house under "nuisance laws".

icebraining3• 7 years ago

Which is insane, because the police shouldn't be putting people in harm's way by pushing them to piss off drug dealers who have the keys to their homes!

Cyclone_2• 7 years ago

I'm not terribly concerned with this particular seizure from the drug dealer the case is about, but glad it sets a precedent for other cases where police may try and abuse power to pick on citizens.

icebraining3• 7 years ago

Well, the court only got to set this ruling because the drug dealer in question decided to fight it all the way to the SCOTUS.

jakelazaroff2• 7 years ago

Why not this case, in which police abused their power to pick on a citizen?

Cyclone_2• 7 years ago

Perhaps because it's a citizen who was able to afford the expensive car by profiting off of something illegal?

ComputerGuru• 7 years ago

One of the most important things about this rule is that the court found that the eighth amendment protections against excessive fines and punishments apply to state/city governments as well, meaning it's finally officially incorporated.

cletus• 7 years ago

For anyone reading this, it's known as the doctrine of Incorporation [1]. Portions of the Bill of Rights are "incorporated" when it's determined they apply to the states (note: it can also be found the clauses don't apply to the states and this is known as Reverse Incorporation).

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incorporation_of_the_Bill_of_R...

lososos• 7 years ago

Link to the opinion: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/18pdf/17-1091_5536.pdf

Based on one very quick reading of the case, my understanding is:

1. Defendant ("D") purchased a $42,000 Land Rover using funds from a life estate policy covering the life of his now-deceased father.

2. D sells $225 worth of heroin to undercover cops. Ends up paying ~$1200 in fines, one year on house arrest, 5 years probation

3. Max penalty in Indiana for his crimes is $10,000

4. Cops seize his Land Rover, arguing it was used in the performance of selling heroin.

5. He sues the State of Indiana, arguing that the seizure is an excessive fine.

6. Trial Court and Appellate Court rule in D's favor. Indiana Supreme Court reverses. D appeals to US Supreme Court.

7. Supreme Court rules that the 8th amendment protects against excessive fines, and that because the rule against excessive fines is part of our national history and tradition, the 14th Amendment makes that part of the 8th amendment apply to the states. Further, excessive fines can be used for silencing political enemies and income generation, rather than being a legitimate part of the process of "retribution and rehabilitation" that we want the justice system to provide. When a State's actions benefit the State, the Court will carefully scrutinize those actions.

8. State of Indiana tried to argue that while "excessive fines" are part of the 8th amendment, it does not apply specifically to civil in rem forfeitures (aka property seizure).

Supreme Court cites a case clarifying the way the analysis is done--only the broad category of "excessive fines" is reviewed, rather than picking out very specific instances of fines, like property seizure.

9. This was a unanimous decision. Technically it was 7-0 with 2 concurring opinions. The two concurrences were Gorsuch and Thomas, who both agreed with the outcome, but said that a different part of the 14th amendment (privileges and immunities) is what should be used, rather than what the other 7 relied on (the due process clause).

10. The case was remanded to Indiana Courts for rulings consistent with this opinion. The Supreme Court answered only whether excessive fines, barred to the US government by the 8th amendment, also applied to the States through the 14th amendment. It did not answer whether the seizure of the Land Rover was actually excessive. Indiana will (get a chance) to decide that.

Based on my reading, it appears that the avenue for property seizure is based upon fines defined by statute. To perform a civil asset seizure, a person must be convicted of a crime. If they are convicted of a crime, the seizure must not constitute an excessive fine. Is this how others interpreted the ruling?

amanaplanacanal3• 7 years ago

To perform a civil asset seizure, a person must be convicted of a crime

This is very unclear to me. I can see how that could be read into the decisions, but I don't think that's what they are actually saying.

shkkmo2• 7 years ago

I see a bunch of confusion here.

This case did not involve "civil forfeiture" but "criminal forfeiture" since the property was being seized as part of a criminal conviction:

https://www.justice.gov/afp/types-federal-forfeiture

gwbas1c• 7 years ago

No paywall: https://raidargist.com/supreme-court-puts-limits-on-police-p...

da_chicken9• 7 years ago

The important thing to understand about this case is the background and what the SCotUS actually ruled on. It's actually rather narrow ruling even if it is extremely important. The court exercised judicial restraint here, and made the minimum ruling necessary.

Timbs was convicted of possession/sale/whatever, jailed for a year, and fined $1,200. The state confiscated his Range Rover as well.

Timbs sued or appealed the confiscation by Indiana, which he he could prove he didn't buy with drug money. The judge of the lower court of Indiana agreed.

The state appealed the judge's ruling. The Indiana Supreme Court reversed the lower court's decision, ruling that the 8th Amendment did not apply to the states.

The SCotUS unanimously disagreed and vacated the Indiana Supreme Court's ruling. The 8th Amendment does apply to the states. However, that's all that they ruled upon. They didn't not rule on whether or not confiscating the SUV was an excessive fine, and remanded the case back to the Indiana state courts.

Now the state of Indiana will be given an opportunity to prove in Indiana court that confiscating the SUV is not an excessive fine. That seems unlikely, however, since the charge Timbs was convicted of carried a statutory maximum fine of $10,000, well below the value of the SUV.

TremendousJudge• 7 years ago

Unrelated question, but who is paying for all these lawyers? Timbs himself out of his pocket?

raincom• 7 years ago

pro bono. I think IJR is involved in this: https://ij.org/report/policing-for-profit/

da_chicken9• 7 years ago

Wikipedia says he was represented by the Institute for Justice.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timbs_v._Indiana

Otherwise, yes, Timbs would have to pay. You can file a petition to ask the court to waive your court costs (there's a Latin legal term for it that I believe means "with pockets turned out" or "with pockets empty" but I can't remember it), but your lawyer's time isn't covered by that.

jessriedel• 7 years ago

More generally, I believe that by the time a cases nears the level of the Supreme Court, legal fees typically become less of an issue in practice. There are many orgs on bath sidee that fund cases with important precedent, and plenty of great lawyers willing to argue for free since it's so prestigious.

TheGRS4• 7 years ago

Others have more specific answers, but more broadly if you have a case that's Supreme Court worthy there are numerous organizations willing to step in to represent your side. The ACLU is sort of built on this principle.

BurningFrog3• 7 years ago

Institute for Justice: https://ij.org/about-us/

You can help out too: https://ij.org/support/give-now

slowmovintarget• 7 years ago

You are correct that they didn't rule on it. But they did write an opinion that was highly suggestive of what the particular finding in this case should have been. It doesn't carry the weight of law, but it isn't nothing, either.

da_chicken9• 7 years ago

Oh, definitely. It was a minimal ruling, but it's still a landmark.

Honestly, though, this case is so perfect that I almost wonder if the Supreme Court of Indiana didn't rule the way they did just to force the issue.

dragonwriter17• 7 years ago

It does, in fact, carry the weight of law (not just in the instant case but in every case to which it's ruling is applicable in every US federal and state court at every level, other than the US Supreme Court itself.)

It isn't, on its own, a final judgment on the case, but that doesn't mean it lacks force of law.

KorematsuFred6• 7 years ago

I find this very remarkable about American legal system. The supreme court could have technically showed some bleeding heart by not showing judicial restraint. Instead they just did their job. Americans must thank this judicial culture.

milesvp• 7 years ago

Yes actually. The courts aren’t there to set law, that is for the legislature. Also by limiting their ruling to the narrowest ruling they can, they keep decisions as local as possible. Courts handle exceptional circumstances, and it’s important they not rule too broadly, else there can be huge overarching unintended side effects of their ruling.

The parallel in programming would be some god class that handles every exception, vs handling exceptions as close to the exception as possible. Generally global exception handling is a bad idea, you want to handle exceptions as close to the context as possible since that is where the most pertinent information in the system lives, and also has the least impact on the rest of the system if the exception can be resolved at a local level.

sathackr5• 7 years ago

It's a welcome check on the Executive and Legislative branches.

Anyone can become President, and anyone can become a lawmaker.

It takes a lifetime of respect to earn a seat on the Supreme Court bench.

ErikVandeWater• 7 years ago

showed some bleeding heart

As if the court being overly sentimental would be the only reason to overturn confiscations of property of this kind?

JohnFen2• 7 years ago

Now if we could only do something about the police stealing stuff from people who aren't even accused of breaking the law.

hannasanarion5• 7 years ago

And why is it a good thing that they didn't rule on the other merits of the case, such as clarifying that a confiscation of a $45000 car is "excessive" for a crime with a maximum fine of $1200?

mikekchar2• 7 years ago

Not American here, but would SCotUS even be able to rule on anything outside of their narrow window? My impression was that they only rule on constitutional issues. I guess that's why they vacated the rest. When it gets to that level, is there any oversight to ensure that they don't go beyond the boundaries of their mandate?

RyanShook• 7 years ago

The amount of restraint shown depends largely on the issue and justices. One of the most infamous overreaches was the Dred Scott case where the court went way beyond the issue at hand and essentially decided the case was invalid because of the defendant’s race.

writepub• 7 years ago

Timbs sued or appealed the confiscation by Indiana, which he he could prove he didn't buy with drug money.

Shouldn't the burden of proof of financing lie with the state before property possession is carried out? It is unfair for the defendant to prove the source of funds for his own property

manicdee• 7 years ago

This is why evil will always win, because good is dumb.

Or more precisely, evil people will happily violate entire tranches of law while the good people are stuck prosecuting one case at a time, painfully establishing precedent by precedent, and in the meantime the world has moved on.

Broken_Hippo• 7 years ago

People have been saying that stuff for years. Unfortunately, this affects mostly folks doing illegal things or those accused of them, making the public at large have little incentive to fix it.

adrianratnapala• 7 years ago

The state did prove that Timbs and committed the crime he was being fined for, the question at hand is whether the state can take away his car.

One reason might have been if it was the proceeds of drug-dealing. But that reason is not relevant since he could prove otherwise (let alone whether the burden of proof is/should be on him).

The other reason is simpler: States can fine people for stuff, but (according to the USSC) the fine can't be excessive.

thinkling• 7 years ago

The crucial detail is that civil forfeiture works by suing the property, not its owner. The owner is just an "interested party" and has limited standing to fight the seizure. It's mind-blowingly bizarre.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asset_forfeiture#United_States

njovin• 7 years ago

I am surprised that the Indiana Supreme Court ruling basically upheld that the Bill of Rights doesn't apply to states in the absence of specific SCOTUS rulings. Can you imagine if individual states felt they have the right to suppress free speech or the press?

I read the official decision from the state court[0] but it's a bit dense for me to get through. It seems like a legal punt, of sorts, in the hopes that SCOTUS would pick up the case.

I'd love to hear someone more qualified break down the state decision.

[0] https://www.leagle.com/decision/ininco20171102267

intopieces• 7 years ago

State Supreme Courts can't incorporate parts of the constitution against their own laws, this is the role of SCOTUS. It's not a matter of will or desire; it's a matter of jurisprudence.

bradleyjg2• 7 years ago

The US Supreme Court decided many decades ago that the Bill of Rights doesn’t apply wholesale to the states. Instead they held that each right has to be analyzed separately to determine if it should apply to the states. This principle is called “selective incorporation”.

At this point most of the rights have been incorporated and only a few have specifically not been incorporated, most notably the right to a grand jury indictment. The excessive fines clause was one of the stragglers that hadn’t been decided either way. (The third amendment probably never will be decided.)

masonic3• 7 years ago

Had the 8th Amendment not been considered to have been incorporated before this?

perpetualpatzer• 7 years ago

The excessive fines clause hadn't, probably in no small part because states would argue "this is a reasonable fine" rather than "we're allowed to give unreasonable fines."

I believe cruel and unusual punishment would have come up in method of execution cases, but not sure of the case.

grappler• 7 years ago

Sounds like they made a very broad ruling (that the 8th Amendment does apply to the states) and left the narrow rulings (about the specifics of the case) to other courts.

gumby4• 7 years ago

BTW, if you have civil forfeiture at all (which I think should't exist), why does the money go to the seizing agency? Shouldn't it all go straight to the general fund to avoid a conflict of interest?

Ditto punitive damages in court cases (where the defendent pays, say, $3M in restitution but say $500M in punitive damages because they could easily afford the $3M and need to suffer enough to change their ways). Why doesn't that money go into the government general fund?

kgwxd• 7 years ago

Also agree it shouldn't exist, but if there were a general fund, it shouldn't go towards funding any government agencies even in a distributed fashion. Maybe credit it out to all tax payers?

el_benhameen• 7 years ago

If it gets credited out to taxpayers, I would expect any public pressure to get rid of civil asset forfeiture to disappear very quickly.

gumby4• 7 years ago

Essentially it would be credited to all taxpayers as less tax revenue would in principle be required but in reality it'd be a drop in the bucket, which is the point.

adventured• 7 years ago

In the 1980s federal law was changed such that asset forfeitures could be put into the US Treasury's general fund. That was quickly changed back a few years later. My suspicion is that the Feds allow the states and agencies to keep it, as a cooperation enticement. It helped make for happy allies in the war on drugs and kept everyone on the same page. Bribe money, basically. If you don't want them to fight against (or ignore enforcement) the war on drugs as a concept, give them an economic incentive to cooperate. The sums used to be far more trivial (prior to the last decade), so the US Treasury likely didn't miss it.

kevin_b_er2• 7 years ago

Some states have laws that say as such, often passed within the last decade.

Then the local law enforcement agencies "partner" with the feds and the forfeiture goes through the federal govt, and the local law enforcement gets a kickback.

This practice of kickbacks to circumvent state law was limited by the previous US President, but was now being un-limited and expanded under the current one.

ec1096852• 7 years ago

What would the point of suing the entity for punitive damages if you didn't see any of the money?

gumby4• 7 years ago

You’re suing for actual damages, for which you should receive restitution

theonemind• 7 years ago

Naming the property as a suit defendent seems like pure legal sophistry. The whole civil forfeiture scheme should run afoul of the the 4th amendment against unreasonable search and seizure.

Originally, they had the phrase "life, liberty, and property", if I recall, but "happiness" sounded more poetic or something in the Declaration of Independence. They definitely had protection of property from the government in mind when writing the Constitution.

aero142• 7 years ago

The only argument I have heard is that it was useful for prosecuting property where no owner will claim it, or the owner is unavailable for prosecution because they are not in the country. Imagine a drug cartel shipped a large pile of cash to the US and it was seized. I could imagine it might make sense to have US vs. Big Pile of Cash because the cartel isn't going to claim it and you could prove it was likely part of the drug trade. IMHO it went sideways as soon as it was used when an owner was available.

caf• 7 years ago

This argument doesn't even fly. In the case that the owner is unknown you could simply file a suit against John Doe, Unidentified Owner of Big Pile Of Cash.

daveheq• 7 years ago

Stop linking paywall articles.

discordance2• 7 years ago

"Law enforcement agencies have resisted efforts to curtail civil forfeiture, saying they rely on the proceeds for sorely needed equipment"

Weird weird reasoning... "I don't have the stuff I want, so I should be able to steal the thieves things"

make3• 7 years ago

This sounds so insane to me: "In fiscal year 2018, state and local agencies received $400 million through this arrangement, known as equitable sharing. The amount varied widely by agency — the Surprise Police Department in Arizona received $570,000, while the Buffalo Police Department in upstate New York got $130,000. The New York Police Department took in $7.8 million.

In Philadelphia, forfeiture proceeds once accounted for 20 percent of prosecutors’ budget, while agencies in New York and California tended to take in the highest sums, according to the Institute for Justice."

vasilipupkin• 7 years ago

there are only two truly valuable and scarce commodities in this universe: time and the rule of law. The hegemony of Unites States( and other countries with similar attitude towards law ) lies not its army or the dollar - but in the fact that at its core it is ruled by law. this 9-0 verdict is proof of it.

masonic3• 7 years ago

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/feb/20/court-const...

cryptonector9• 7 years ago

Finally! Joyful day!

I've not read all of the decision yet, but it seems that any decision about retroactivity was left for later. That will now lead to a bunch of fun cases where plaintiffs demand their property and monies back, and the cities and States will have a hard time ponying it up. Localities and States that play fast and loose with the Constitution should pay a steep price when it later turns out that the SCOTUS gets to make the obvious ruling. That will teach the cities and States to not violate the Constitution willy-nilly. It was obvious to anyone who bothered to read the Constitution and Incorporation case law that civil asset forfeiture was on very thin ice, both, as a matter of jurisprudence, and as a matter of plain reading of the Constitution.

suika_hacker• 7 years ago

this is amazing

m3kw9• 7 years ago

It took this case to set a precedent, I’m sure there were other more high crime to value ratio forfeitures. I’m glad this is in place because it was a tactic used by low life’s to take someone’s house by slapping on a small criminal offense on someone

liamtk43• 7 years ago

The more significant aspect of the ruling was Justice Thomas and Gorsuch's concurring opinions, in which they emphasized that the Court's decision should have been based on the "privileges and immunities” clause and not the due process clause of Fourteenth Amendment.

edhowzerblack• 7 years ago

paywall

noarchy• 7 years ago

How is it that some articles, like this one, manage to stay on the front page for more than a day, while others (which seem to be popular, based on points and comments) seemingly vanish within hours? Is the human intervention in these rankings stronger than I realize?

Edit: I'm not opposed to this article's longevity, by the way. Far from it, it is a very important topic.

U.S. Supreme Court Puts Limits on Police Power to Seize Private Property

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