Under Seize

• Author: Mark Walsh
• Pages: 20-21

When his father died in 2012, Tyson Timbs spent a large chunk of the

$73,000 he inherited to buy a Land Rover LR2.

“I just always liked them for as long as I can remember,” Timbs says of the

high-end SUV brand. A salesman steered him from the used vehicle Timbs

intended to buy and toward a brand-new model costing $42,000.

“It was going to be dependable,” says Timbs, a 37-year-old Indiana factory worker.

Under Seize

The high court will address whether the excessive fi nes clause applies to states

By Mark Walsh

The Docket

20 || ABA JOURNAL DECEMBER 2018

Supreme

Court

Report

The Land Rover was indeed a dependable ride, but

Timbs’ long-standing problems with dr ug use evolved

into drug dealing, w hich led to his arrest in 2013 and

the seizure of his pri zed set of wheels.

His prosecution has led to an i mportant U.S. Supreme

Court c ase about the Eighth A mendment’s prohibition

against the imposition of “excessive fi nes.” The legal

question in Timbs v. Indiana, scheduled for argument

on Nov. 28 as part of the court’s December sitti ng, is

whether the clause is incorporat ed against the states by

the 14th Amendment.

Incorporations would be “a potentially ver y impor-

tant constitutional l imitation” on the states, says Beth

A. Colgan, an as sistant professor of law at University of

California at L os Angeles who has written that exce ssive

fi nes have become the “modern debtors’ pr ison.”

‘GROSSLY DISPROPORTIONAL’

For 10 years, Timbs had battled a d rug addiction—

fi rst wit h opioid painkillers a nd then heroin. By 2012,

he had moved from Ohio to rura l Indiana to live with

an aunt. For a time, he had gotten clea n. But his father’s

death sent him into a relapse. A fter Timbs quickly spent

the rest of his inherit ance, he was looking for a way to

fund his drug habit a nd began to deal in heroin, court

papers say.

Timbs made two sales t o undercover police o cers i n

2013, and he was drivi ng his Land Rover on the way to

another sale when the police pulled him over. Despite

not fi nding any illegal drugs in t he vehicle that day, the

police arrested T imbs and charged him under state law

with dealing in a c ontrolled substance based on the two

earlier undercover transa ctions.

While Timbs’ crim inal case was pending, a privat e

law fi rm under the authority of a local prosecut or fi led

a civil lawsuit seek ing forfeiture to the state of the Land

Rover, which the police had taken into thei r custody.

Indiana is the only stat e allowing such private forfei-

ture actions, in wh ich the private fi rms get a cut of any

proceeds from the forfeit ed property, according to the

petitioner’s brief. However, most states and the federal

government routinely seek forfeiture of proper ty used in

criminal activity.

Timbs pleaded guilt y to one count of dealing and one

other criminal c ount. He was sentenced to six years,

with one year to be ser ved in home detention (with his

aunt) and fi ve years probation, plus about $1,200 in

fi nes and court costs.

The same judge took up the civil forfeit ure claim,

fi nding that Timb s had used the Land Rover to trans-

port heroin but ruling that for feiture of the vehicle

would be “grossly disproportiona l to the gravity” of the

o ense .

A panel of the Indiana Cour t of Appeals a rmed,

holding that the excessive fi nes clause is applicable to

the states and agr eeing that the forfeiture would be dis-

proportionate even to the ma ximum $10,000 criminal

fi ne that could have been applied to T imbs for his drug

o  e n s e .

The Indiana Supreme Court revers ed, ruling 5-0 that

the excessive fi nes cl ause has not been incorporated

against the stat es.

‘WELL-CHRONI CLED ABUSES’

Timbs’ appeal to the U.S. Supreme Cour t reached the

justices at a time when there has b een renewed atten-

tion to the potentially onerous burdens of ci vil fi nes and

forfeitures.

In 2017, in a statement respecting the denial of cer-

tiorari in the ca se Leonard v. Texas, Justice Clarence

Thomas expressed concer ns about modern civil forfei-

ture practices.

“This system—where police ca n seize property with

limited judicial oversight a nd retain it for their own

use—has led to egreg ious and well-chronicled abuses,”

Thomas wrote, add ing that he was skeptical that his-

torical forfeitu re practices, which tended to arise i n the

realms of custom s and piracy, could support “the con-

tours of modern practice .”

Timbs has attra cted support from a wide range of

organizations, including t he American Bar Association,

the American Civ il Liberties Union, the U.S. Chamber

of Commerce and the Pacifi c Legal Foundation.

The ABA in its amicu s brief told the justices about

its Working Group on Building Public Trust in the

American Justice S ystem, which is addressing the