U.S. Supreme Court,
Constitutional Law
Feb. 27, 2019
Excessive fine guidance needed
The U.S. Supreme Court stopped short of providing additional guidance as to what constitutes an excessive fine in this context or otherwise protecting property owners from civil forfeiture’s constant abuse.
David B. Smith
David is an Alexandria, Virginia, attorney with a national forfeiture practice. He is the author of the leading treatise on asset forfeiture, "Prosecution and Defense of Forfeiture Cases" (Matthew Bender 2017).
On Feb. 20, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its decision on the Eighth Amendment's excessive fines clause. In Timbs v. Indiana, 2019 DJDAR 1337, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg authored a unanimous decision holding that the excessive fines clause is an incorporated protection applicable to the states under the Fourteenth Amendment's due process clause. A few state supreme ...
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