Here is another place I take a different path than many conservatives.
I agree with this unanimous spreme court rulling:
The Eighth Amendment states: “Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.” Two of those commands — regarding bail and cruel and unusual punishments — have been deemed to apply to state and local governments. But until now, the ban on excessive fines had not been.
The case was from a drug conviction:
The court ruled in favor of Tyson Timbs of Marion, Ind., who had his $42,000 Land Rover seized after he was arrested for selling a couple hundred dollars’ worth of heroin.
I have felt this way forever. And if NO charges are filed against a person, their property shouldn’t be seized – (one little cavaet I do agree with. Car is pulled over and they find 100k cash in it and no one in the car claims it – then it’s not owened and should be taken until the owner comes to claim it.)
Civil forfeiture is out of control in the United States. Law enforcement is literally incentivized to take property from people whether they’re guilty or not. Isn’t this where Trump plans to get a lot of his wall money?
Some of it yes. But a lot of the Federal money isn’t seized civily, but is taken legitimitly through a criminal trial as the ill gotten gains of a crime.
For a criminal trial it’s held as evidence (same with seized bank accounts and that), then once the trial is concluded either returned or forfited as part of the sentence.
I know that. I was pointing out that there is also criminal forfiture.
In my example, the car with 10k in cash and no one claims it. Or the driver says it’s theirs but the officer says nope drug money and seizes it without charging the person claiming it. If Not claimed by anyone in the car, I think it should be put into the unclaimed property fund of the state. Without charging the person who claims it, I don’t think they should be able to seize it.
In the case in the OP, the person was charged and the truck seized. The court has ruled that it’s an unfair punishment to be conviced of a small crime and have a 40k vehicle seized was an excessive fine. Going to be a lot of cases going to the supreme court in the future to see if a seizure of money/property crosses the excessive fine threashold.
It was an issue because if it was a civil forfeiture then it was not tibbs who was sued but his car…
Indiana hired a private law firm to sue the car in civil court not tibbs himself…
That part is very relevant because that means the person losing the property has to represent the property themselves or pay alot of money for legal fees, often more than the value being siezed…
Civil forfeiture has nothing to do with the crime a person committed… that is criminal forfeiture…
In civil forfeiture the property is literally the item being sued… the lawsuit actually reads "state of Indiana vs land rover "…
All they have to show is the property was a participant in a crime and it then becomes property of the state…
This is regardless if the person who owned the item is even charged, much less convicted…
This law was originally meant for the millionaire drug lords who hid all their property in shell companies and is now being used against someone who uses a car to go buy a eighth of weed…
I am glad that scotus is finally pushing back on this atrocity…
