'Excessive fines' ban applies to states, Supreme Court says
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February 21, 2019
WASHINGTON (AP) — Tyson Timbs admitted he'd sold drugs, and he accepted his sentence without a fight. What he wouldn't quietly accept was the police seizing and keeping the $40,000 Land Rover he'd had when arrested. On Wednesday, the Supreme Court sided with him unanimously in ruling the Constitution's ban on excessive fines applies to the states as well as the federal government.
The decision, in an opinion written by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, could help efforts to rein in police seizures of property from criminal suspects.
Reading a summary of her opinion in the courtroom, Ginsburg noted...
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