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Supreme Court curbs power of government to impose heavy fines and seize property
In a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court on Wednesday ruled to drastically curb the powers that states and cities have to levy fines and seize property, marking the first time the court has applied the Constitution's ban on excessive fines at the state level.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who returned to the court for the first time in almost two months after undergoing surgery for lung cancer, wrote the majority opinion in the case involving an Indiana man who had his Land Rover seized after he was arrested for selling $385 of heroin.
"Protection against excessive fines has been a constant shield throughout Anglo-American history for good reason: Such fines undermine other liberties," Ginsburg wrote. "They can be used, e.g., to retaliate against or chill the speech of political enemies. They can also be employed, not in service of penal purposes, but as a source of revenue."
Also at National Review, SCOTUSblog, and NPR.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 21 2019, @09:03PM
civil forfeiture was supposed to be used to take property that was used in the commition of a crime. IOW, "actively used to commit the crime". like the getaway car in a bank robbery. not the transportation you happened to be using while you were found to be in possession of some "contraband". they are probably stealing expensive watches and shit too. fucking scum. nevermind the fact that these drugs being illegal is itself illegal. so a power that was supposed to be used narrowly is now being used to steal from people en masse because these seditious lawmakers and their slave catchers want to make homemade medicine out to be some sort of crime. it's none of the government's business and the founders would have never imagined that the federal government would be telling people what plants they can grow on their own property or what medicines they can have on their person or sell to other people (assuming fraud is not involved). most of these lawmakers and cops know this too, so they are actively guilty of sedition and deserved to be dispatched on sight.