In a landmark, unanimous decision, the Supreme Court made a strong move for police reform by ruling that civil forfeiture, which critics have claimed has created a culture of “policing for profit,” is unconstitutional when the property seized is disproportionate in value to the crime committed.
The case was about Tyson Timbs, who had been convicted of selling heroin to an undercover agent for $225. The criminal court sentenced Timbs to one year in house arrest, five years on probation, and fined him $1,203. Because the maximum possible fine he could have been given for his crime was $10,000, Timbs argued that the seizure of the Land Rover he bought for $42,000 with his father’s life insurance violated the Eighth Amendment’s protection against excessive fines. The state of Indiana argued that it was not bound by the Eighth Amendment.
Originally, the Bill of Rights in the federal Constitution only applied to the federal government, which is why many state constitutions have their own Bill of Rights. The Fourteenth Amendment, which was passed in response to the Civil War, bound the federal Bill of Rights to state and local governments.
However, there are parts of the federal Bill of Rights that are not applicable to the other levels of government, such as the Tenth Amendment. It is the duty of the judicial branch to rule on which parts of the federal Bill of Rights are to be incorporated.
The Eighth Amendment is made up of three clauses: the excessive bail clause, the excessive fine clause, and the cruel and the unusual punishment clause. Although the Supreme Court incorporated the cruel and unusual punishment clause in 1962 and the excessive bail clause in 1971, it has not given a ruling on the excessive fine clause (1).
Indiana argued that because there was no ruling on the matter, the excessive fine clause does not apply to the state government. Although the trial and appellate courts found this logic unconvincing, Indiana’s Supreme Court agreed with the state, writing that, “[a]bsent a definitive holding from the Supreme Court, we decline to subject Indiana to a federal test” (2).
Slate reports that during oral arguments Justice Neil Gorsuch said to Indiana Solicitor General Thomas Fisher: “Here we are in 2018, still litigating incorporation of the Bill of Rights. Really? Come on, General.” (3)
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote in the majority opinion that, “[t]he historical and logical case for concluding that the Fourteenth Amendment incorporates the Excessive Fines Clause is indeed overwhelming.” (4)
This ruling gives victims a powerful new tool to combat civil forfeiture, which is a legal power that allows police to confiscate property based on suspicion that it was used in a crime or was purchased with the profits of criminal activity.
The New Yorker reports that one officer proudly testified on the stand that suspicion during a traffic stop that validates the confiscation of tens of thousands of dollars can be established by many factors: if the citizens are of certain ethnicities, if the citizens are traveling from certain locations, if the car has certain bumper stickers, if the stop happens during the week, if the stop happens in the middle of the day, if the car is borrowed or rented, if the officer smells pot (police officers are no longer allowed to search a car or persons solely based on smell; they need visible evidence, but laws vary per state), if the car smells clean, or if the car has a new coat of paint (5).
After the property is confiscated, citizens can bring the case to a civil court and attempt to prove that their property was not used for any crimes. Because the Sixth Amendment gave citizens a right to legal counsel only during criminal proceedings, the cost of attempting to retrieve their property is carried solely by the citizen.
Scott Bullock, the president and senior attorney of the Institute of Justice, described this procedure to the Washington Post as, “Your property is guilty until you prove it innocent,” and one officer who seized $50,000 during a traffic stop in Nevada told the victim, who claimed he had won the money in Las Vegas: “Good luck proving it. You’ll burn it up in attorney fees before we give it back to you.” (1)
1) https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/civil-forfeiture-makes-law-enforcement-lawless-the-supreme-court-could-change-that/2018/11/23/1ca778a2-ef51-11e8-96d4-0d23f2aaad09_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.f6ca468a3e8d
2) https://caselaw.findlaw.com/in-supreme-court/1878886.html
3) https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/02/supreme-court-rules-against-civil-forfeitures-rbg-timbs.html
4) https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/18pdf/17-1091_5536.pdf 5) https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/08/12/taken
5) https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/25/us/politics/supreme-court-civil-asset-forfeiture.html
6) https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/supreme-court-says-constitutional-protection-against-excessive-fines-applies-to-state-actions/2019/02/20/204ce0d4-3522-11e9-af5b-b51b7ff322e9_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.814f98c36c6d