To some civil rights advocates, it’s a “law enforcement Weapon of Mass Destruction.”
Civil asset forfeiture – the ability of authorities to seize private property used in a crime – has become a lucrative revenue source for states and a tool to exact punishment, in many cases without insomuch as a court hearing.
For decades, critics have panned the practice as “policing for profit” and an example of unchecked government overreach.
This week, the Supreme Court will hear arguments over whether the Eighth Amendment’s protection against “excessive fines” applies to civil asset forfeiture and whether states are obligated to abide by that Constitutional guarantee.
The case was brought by 37-year-old Tyson Timbs of Marion, Ind., whose Land Rover SUV was seized by local authorities in 2013 after his arrest for selling $260 of heroin.
Timbs pleaded guilty to dealing drugs and was sentenced to one year of home detention and five years of probation. He was also assessed $1203 in fines and fees. The government kept his $42,000 Land Rover.
Timbs’ lawyers argued that seizure of the vehicle was unconstitutional, amounting to an excessive fine. The maximum criminal fine for Timbs’ drug offense under Indiana law is $10,000.
“While the negative impact on our society of trafficking in illegal drugs is substantial, a forfeiture of approximately four times the maximum monetary fine is disproportional to Timbs’ illegal conduct,” the state trial court concluded, siding with Timbs.
Timbs’ lawyers contend the freedom from excessive fines – to include forfeiture of valuable personal property – is fundamental for all Americans.
“For ordinary citizens, the real-world consequences can be devastating,” they argue in their brief to the Supreme Court.
“The Excessive Fines Clause secures a single, unitary right: freedom from excessive economic sanctions that are at least partly punitive,” Timbs’ team claims. “To be sure, that right can be violated in countless ways, using countless tools; in this regard, governments are endlessly innovative, ‘with more and more civil laws bearing more and more extravagant punishments.’”
A state appeals court agreed that constitutional limits apply.
But the Indiana Supreme Court reversed the decision, saying that Indiana could keep Timbs’ Land Rover because states are not required to abide by the Excessive Fines Clause of the Eighth Amendment. The panel explained that the U.S. Supreme Court had not yet weighed in on the matter.
Now the nine justices have their chance.
“The right Timbs claims is neither fundamental to nor deeply rooted in America’s legal tradition and therefore does not apply against the states,” lawyers for Indiana argue in their brief to the Supreme Court.
The state says civil asset forfeitures, which it concedes can often have a “draconian impact,” are a longstanding, legitimate practice in American history.
“The forfeiture action is entirely separate from any criminal prosecution,” the state argues, “because the state brings the action against the property itself,” not against the person.
“The validity of the forfeiture, therefore, turns not on Timbs’s culpability but on the [Land] Rover’s – because it was used to transport drugs for the purpose of drug dealing,” the Indiana lawyers argue. The state says the mere likelihood the Land Rover would be used again to commit a crime necessitated the seizure.
“Whether the Constitution would prohibit a hypothetical $40,000 criminal fine for Timbs’s crime is irrelevant,” Indiana’s lawyers contend.
The impact of the Supreme Court’s decision could be significant.
In the 26 states and District of Columbia that report forfeiture activity, law enforcement agencies collected more than $254 million in funds and property in 2012 alone, according to an analysis by the Institute for Justice, a non-profit libertarian public interest law firm.
“This is an incredibly important case,” said Christopher Riano, lecturer in constitutional law and government at Columbia University. “Historically, whenever the court takes these types of cases, the court does usually move to incorporate the federal guarantees against the states.”
If the court does rule that the constitutional protection against excessive fines applies to the states – and that Timbs was unfairly sanctioned – it would likely trigger action in states nationwide to move toward limits on civil asset forfeiture.
“Instead of simply saying you were transporting heroin and the state is seizing your vehicle,” Riano said, “a state would most likely have to go a little further and consider whether that seizure was excessive or prohibited under the Eigth Amendment. That would mean a hearing or evidentiary finding.”
It would also mean Timbs gets his Land Rover back.
from ABC News: Politics https://ift.tt/2P5VOfO
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