Posted on 02/20/2019 6:04:21 PM PST by Hojczyk
The Supreme Court has just put the clamps on states’ ability to impose excessive fines and use civil asset forfeiture to seize private property.
On Wednesday February 20, 2019, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 9-0 that the Eight Amendment’s ban on excessive fines also applies to states. This landmark ruling bolsters property rights and could curtail controversial law enforcement seizures, especially those carried out via civil forfeiture.
In the decision, Timbs v. Indiana, the Supreme Court sided with small time drug offender Tyson Timbs, whose $42,000 Land Rover was seized by law enforcement officials. Civil asset forfeiture is one of the most controversial methods used to raise revenue across the nation. However, it has garnered considerable criticism from political figures across the political spectrum.
In a previous case, Austin v. United States, the Court ruled that the Eight Amendment, which is clear about its prohibition of “excessive fines”, limits the federal government’s ability to seize property. Timbs v. Indiana now extends those limits to the states.
For once, Justice Ruth Ginsburg gets it right. She wrote:
“The historical and logical case for concluding that the 14th Amendment incorporates the Excessive Fines Clause is overwhelming.”
Ginsburg drew from Anglo-American legal traditions to rule in Timbs’s favor:
(Excerpt) Read more at bigleaguepolitics.com ...
We don't have the stomach for that anymore.
How many 9-0 decisions have ever been made by the SCOTUS?
This is a GOOD one!
YEA!!!!
People that tried were labeled criminals and terrorists, arrested, jailed, fined, or killed.
The govenment, for better or for worse, has always been able to buy private property for public use--for a courthouse, for instance--paying what a court would determine to be "fair market value." It may or not be a good price for the property owner, but that's how it works.
Kelo extended the concept of "public use" to extending the tax base--a feeble excuse if you ask me-- and sided with New London.
As everybody knows, the project never was completed and Ms. Kelo lost her property to eminent domain.
However, she did receive money for the property. Just how much, I am not sure.
Asset forfeiture, on the other hand, is based on the criminal law, not property law. Dating back to the middle ages, forfeiture is effectively punishing the property as a party to a crime. In many cases, the owner never gets charged or convicted, but loses his property--real estate, cars, guns, anything of value to the government--nevertheless. The legal cost for getting it back deters a person from even trying.
A famous episode of a government agency trying to seize property is when the sheriff, DEA agents and others unnamed broke in and killed millionaire Donald Scott, who was believed to be growing marijuana on his ranch near Malibu. The county wanted his property for "open space" and he didn't want to sell.
Wikipedia has a sanitized version of events here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Donald_P._Scott
The long version is a bit more conspiratorial, but how can it be disproven? These things can happen, whether we have laws or not.
See the links in #24 above to see how it's been abused.
Yea, I remember hearing about that. The point is that the punishment should fit the crime. This is going to go in a lot of different directions.
For more links than most of us would have time to read, visit their web page on Timbs v. Indiana.
I know it has been abused, and hat troubles me.
I’ve heard of the Scott case before, but I didn’t remember all the particulars. Thank you.
Very troubling isn’t it.
KELO was eminent domain .
A few years ago my wife’s car was totaled. I took the insurance money of many thousands of dollars in cash and went to a dealership to buy her a new car.
Oddly under the insane forfeiture laws if stopped by a cop I would have been subject to forfeiture. To do this all they would have needed to do is cast suspicion on me as a drug dealer. Actually I am a drug dealer. I am a registered pharmacist in the great state of Texas. At that time I was not aware of these insane laws. I would not do this again.
why was this decision revisited?....I’m glad they did......
Posts earlier today had it at 8-0 with speculation about who didn’t vote. What changed?
Probably half of all the cases SCOTUS decides are unanimous. It's only the controversial cases that get press coverage.
Yeah, you do have to play it safe.
I’d like to see this done away with.
As I said, look if the person is a known convicted drug dealer, maybe.
For a guy like you who could easily explain it even if they tried to frame you, I’d never agree to it.
When did scotus ever vote 9-0?
Such a slam dunk , how did it get to SC?
Something rotten in lower courts
Technically, it can be said to be 8-0-1, as Thomas filed a concurrence that agreed with the outcome, but thought the path taken to get to that outcome was wrong. I agree with him. Here's the opening paragraph of his concurrence:
I agree with the Court that the Fourteenth Amendment makes the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on excessive fines fully applicable to the States. But I cannot agree with the route the Court takes to reach this conclusion. Instead of reading the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause to encompass a substantive right that has nothing to do with “process,” I would hold that the right to be free from excessive fines is one of the “privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States” protected by the Fourteenth Amendment.
You'll find the decision and concurrences here. It is fairly short for a modern Supreme Court decision.
While I agree with some that the decision itself may well have far flung implications, what it really boils down to is that the court has finally "incorporated" the 8th Amendment, meaning that the limitations put forward by the 8th Amendment apply fully to the states as well as the Feral government.
In the short term, I don't expect fireworks because of this ruling, but do expect that it sets up the possibility of future review by the court to see how far that incorporation may impact the states. Some see this as a major defeat of 'asset forfeiture' cases, but I'm not so sure. It might force states to roll back some of the worst abuses, though that is going to take a long time, because the states aren't going to give up the gravy train they are on without a fight. If I recall correctly, even Thomas came down as supporting the concept of asset forfeiture pretty strongly last time it made a major appearance as subject before the court. On this, I disagree strongly with Justice Thomas' position. I don't expect him to change his mind on it, though perhaps the many abuses may have caused him to rethink its reach. One can hope I suppose.
Happens a lot actually. Most of the early decisions in any term are 9-0 or similar strong results. You just don't tend to hear about cases like that because they aren't generally thought of as "controversial" by the media.
I’m not sure how conflating Kelo v. New London with TIMBS v. INDIANA case advances the issue against eminent domain. The Kelo case involves eminent domain and compensation for the seizure of property by the state.
TIMBS v. INDIANA involves seizure of property without compensation under the theory of use of the property in a criminal enterprise (dealing heroin) and further rebukes the state for seizure of a property with value above the maximum penalty for the crime ($10,000.00).
Kelo was not good law, but this case is decided on the avarice of government targeting investigations and in exacting penalties to which they are not entitled.
Every damned one of those criminals-with-badges at that raid should be tried and executed for murder.
Every one of them.
Good. Now let’s see how many years it takes for all of the road-pirate police agencies across the country to stop robbing people at gunpoint during traffic stops.
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