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February 21, 2019

CIVIL FORFEITURES
Supreme Court rules that 8th Amendment ban on excessive fines applies to civil forfeitures under state law
Although virtually all state constitutions prohibit excessive fines, extensive research has shown that states and state agencies have widely and increasingly used civil forfeiture statutes and other fines as a source of funding, according to an amicus brief filed in the instant case. State pharmacy boards are often the beneficiaries of funds derived from civil and criminal forfeitures in drug cases.

On February 20, the U.S. Supreme Court issued an opinion written by Justice Ginsburg holding that under the 14^th Amendment, 8^th Amendment protections against excessive fines apply to states, vacating and remanding a decision by the Indiana Supreme Court that would have granted a state civil forfeiture lawsuit seeking to seize the petitioner’s $42,000 Land Rover when he pleaded guilty to dealing in controlled substances worth a few hundred dollars, and when the maximum monetary fine would have been $10,000. The Indiana court held overturned rulings by lower courts that the seizure would constitute an excessive fine under 8^th Amendment jurisprudence, holding that the 8^th Amendment prohibitions applied only federally.

In the 9-0 ruling, the majority of  the Supreme Court relied on the due process clause of the 14^th Amendment, and held that the ban on excessive fines has existed as a fundamental element of Anglo-American jurisprudence since at least the Magna Carta. Justice Thomas concurred, but argued that reliance on due process to establish rights is inappropriate; he would find that the ban on excessive fines is “one of the ‘privileges or immunities of citizens’” protected under the 14^th Amendment.

The Court did not rule on whether this particular forfeiture was, as held by the trial court in the underlying case, “grossly disproportional to the gravity” of the crime. Rather, it held that on remand the Indiana courts would need to apply 8^th Amendment jurisprudence to in rem forfeitures. [Timbs v. Indiana, No. 17-1091, S.Ct., 586 U.S. ____ (2019)]