Speaker 1: And we return to our American stories. And now it's
Speaker 1: time for another rule of law story, which is a
Speaker 1: part of our rule of Law series, where we showcase
Speaker 1: what happens in the absence and the presence of the
Speaker 1: rule of law in our lives. Things like property rights
Speaker 1: that we just take for granted courts and an independent judiciary,
Speaker 1: separation of powers which gives meaning to that independence of
Speaker 1: the judiciary, and contract rights, things that in other countries. Well,
Speaker 1: good luck, and by the way, that rule of law
Speaker 1: extends to all of us, good and bad and in between.
Speaker 1: Here's our own Monty Montgomery with the story of a
Speaker 1: man who violated what would seem to be a clear
Speaker 1: cut law and the long winded case that he became
Speaker 1: wrapped up in as a result.
Speaker 2: In twenty twelve, Tyson Tims found himself on the receiving
Speaker 2: end of a decent amount of cash following the death
Speaker 2: of his father. He promptly bought a nice car and
Speaker 2: a year later drove out to sell some drugs to
Speaker 2: undercover cops. Here's Ilia Soman with the rest of the story.
Speaker 3: So he was caught and he was charged with a
Speaker 3: small scale drug offence. He admitted that he did commit
Speaker 3: a crime. But when he drove to this transaction, he
Speaker 3: was driving his land Rover SUV, which according to estimates,
Speaker 3: was worth something like between forty and forty two thousand dollars.
Speaker 3: So the state of Indiana seized the land Rover through
Speaker 3: asset forfeiture.
Speaker 2: But what's asset forfeiture and why did law enforcement decide
Speaker 2: to leave Tyson without his wheels over a drug offence?
Speaker 3: Asset forfeiture sure is a practice whereby government can confiscate
Speaker 3: property that was used in a crime, such as a
Speaker 3: car or in some cases, even something as major as
Speaker 3: a house. And often they can do it even if
Speaker 3: the owner of the property was never convicted of any crime,
Speaker 3: and indeed even if he or she was never charged
Speaker 3: for it. So you get examples like the police will
Speaker 3: stop someone's car, perhaps for a minor traffic violation. Then
Speaker 3: they'll ask to search the car, and then they find
Speaker 3: some money in the car. Say you're transporting cash that
Speaker 3: some people do. The police might decide it seems likely
Speaker 3: that this money was acquired in a drug transaction or
Speaker 3: some kind of other illegal transaction. They take the car
Speaker 3: potentially and the money as well. Similarly, if, for instance,
Speaker 3: you lent your car to a friend, and then the
Speaker 3: friend was suspected of driving it to buy illegal drug,
Speaker 3: then your car could be confiscated, even though you may
Speaker 3: not even have known that your friend was going to
Speaker 3: use it for that purpose. And sometimes that can happen,
Speaker 3: and even if the friend himself never get charged with anything,
Speaker 3: And there are many many examples like this. They vary
Speaker 3: somewhat by state, but the basic idea is that the
Speaker 3: government can seize property that they think might have been
Speaker 3: used in a crime in many cases, in most states,
Speaker 3: they don't have to prove that it actually happened. They
Speaker 3: certainly don't have to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt. Indeed,
Speaker 3: the procedures in many states are such that once they
Speaker 3: seize your property for asset forfeiture, the a wordness and
Speaker 3: effect falls on you to prove that you're innocent or
Speaker 3: the property wasn't used in a crime. And often the
Speaker 3: cost of getting the property back is actually more valuable
Speaker 3: than the property itself. So if they see something that's
Speaker 3: worth five hundred or one thousand, or even two or
Speaker 3: three thousand dollars, as is often the case, in order
Speaker 3: to mitigate the issue and get it back, even if
Speaker 3: you're successful, you may have to pay a lawyer more
Speaker 3: money than the property is worth, and it may take
Speaker 3: you many weeks for many months to even get a
Speaker 3: hearing about it, much west get the property back.
Speaker 2: Now, at this point you may be thinking, big deal.
Speaker 2: Guy buys expensive car. Guy drives the car to sell
Speaker 2: drugs to undercover cops. Guy gets punished. Who cares about
Speaker 2: his car? This seems just. But the issue here isn't
Speaker 2: the taking of the car. It's that there was no
Speaker 2: due process to take it. And law enforcement can sell
Speaker 2: assets seized via forfeiture and add it to their budgets.
Speaker 2: And if you want your stuff back, you have to
Speaker 2: take them to court using money you probably don't have.
Speaker 2: There's no accountability, there's no rule of law. So Tyson
Speaker 2: went to court.
Speaker 3: And Tyson Tims represented by the Institute for Justice. They
Speaker 3: argued that this seizure viuated the excessive fines clause of
Speaker 3: the Eighth Amendment. The eight Amendment is best known for
Speaker 3: or forbidding cruel and unusual punishment, but it also forbids
Speaker 3: excessive finds.
Speaker 2: And thus began a game of pinball for Tyson Tims
Speaker 2: and the Institute for Justice. Between court systems.
Speaker 3: So this case is unusual even by the standards of
Speaker 3: federal Supreme Court cases. That not only did it reach
Speaker 3: the Federal Supreme Court, but there are also three separate
Speaker 3: Indiana State Supreme Court decisions, and there are not many
Speaker 3: Supreme Court cases historically which are like that. That's extremely unusual,
Speaker 3: and the case raised two important issues that the Supreme
Speaker 3: Court had never previously resolved. One is whether the Excessive
Speaker 3: Fines cause even applies to state and local governments at all,
Speaker 3: as opposed to just a federal government. Overlying period of time,
Speaker 3: the Supreme Court has gradually decided that nearly every other
Speaker 3: part of the Bill of Rights, with a few exceptions,
Speaker 3: applies to state and local governments and not just to government.
Speaker 3: But they had never decided this would respect to the
Speaker 3: Excessive Fines cause. So when the case initially reached the
Speaker 3: State Supreme Court of Indiana, the state Supreme Court said, well,
Speaker 3: this doesn't apply to the states, or if it does,
Speaker 3: we the Supreme Court of Indiana can't say that it does.
Speaker 3: Only the federal Supreme Court can make that decision. The
Speaker 3: other big issue is, let's assume the Excessive Fines Cause
Speaker 3: does apply to state governments do asset forfeitures qualify as
Speaker 3: excessive fines because maybe ASCID four viitures just aren't finds
Speaker 3: at all. That's another thing that the State of Indiana
Speaker 3: argued in this case. So when the case got to
Speaker 3: the Supreme Court, the court actually showed a rare degree
Speaker 3: of unanimity. All nine justices, both liberal and conservative, concluded
Speaker 3: that the cause does in fact apply to state governments
Speaker 3: and local governments as well as the federal government. Everybody,
Speaker 3: I think expected that outcome would have been very surprising
Speaker 3: if the court had said, no, this is the one
Speaker 3: part of the Bill Rights that doesn't apply against the states. Secondly,
Speaker 3: they also ruled that at least some asset forfeitures can
Speaker 3: indeed be fines excessive finds, and therefore, if they're big enough,
Speaker 3: they could be struck down as excessive. And they rejected
Speaker 3: the argument to forfeitures just aren't finds at all, because
Speaker 3: the state did argue that this is just an attempt
Speaker 3: to seize property you use for legal purposes. It's not
Speaker 3: really a punishment of the person who committed the offense,
Speaker 3: or maybe even in many cases didn't commit any offense.
Speaker 3: And I need a court ruled correctly that finds and
Speaker 3: forfeitures are sufficiently similar that many, if not all, asset
Speaker 3: forfeitures can in fact qualify as finds. But the court
Speaker 3: left opened the issue of what is an exactly that
Speaker 3: makes an asset forfeiture excessive? And this issue has ended
Speaker 3: up in the lower courts with the result that even
Speaker 3: the specific case of Tyson Tims, actually they made it
Speaker 3: back to the Indiana Supreme Court two more times, one
Speaker 3: time where the Indiana Supreme Court set up a test
Speaker 3: for how they think the excessiveness of the fine should
Speaker 3: be determined, and then a second case where even though
Speaker 3: the test that they shet up, I think it was
Speaker 3: clear that Tyson Tims should win under that test, because,
Speaker 3: among other things, the value of the wand Rover is
Speaker 3: about four times the maximum find that you could get
Speaker 3: for a criminal conviction in Indiana for the type of
Speaker 3: illegal drug transaction that he attempted. But nonetheless, the State
Speaker 3: of Indiana, much like Inspector Javert in Wayne Miserabwe, they
Speaker 3: continued their single mind in pursuit of the wand Rover.
Speaker 3: They didn't want to give it up, so they continued
Speaker 3: to litigate the case. So it went back to the
Speaker 3: State Supreme Court. Yet again, this is the third time
Speaker 3: the case went to the Indiana State Supreme Court, and
Speaker 3: in that instance, the Indiana State Supreme Court finally ruled
Speaker 3: that Tyson Tims could in fact get his wand Rover back. So,
Speaker 3: after a legal battle that lasted some seven years, Tyson
Speaker 3: Tims did in fact recover the wand Rover and is
Speaker 3: now happily driving it. Now. Most cases don't go through
Speaker 3: that lawing a process or are that costly. I don't
Speaker 3: know how much money IJ spent litigating this case, but
Speaker 3: it is probably into several hundreds of thousands of dollars
Speaker 3: or even more so obvious who is more than the
Speaker 3: value of the wand Rover. Even though the wand Rover
Speaker 3: is a fairly expensive and valuable vehicle, as I said before,
Speaker 3: it's worth about forty thousand dollars. That said, the typical
Speaker 3: asset forfeiture probably involves and mounts in the range of
Speaker 3: property worth five hundred or one thousand dollars, and even
Speaker 3: the lawyer's fees for a more conventional case will easily
Speaker 3: exceed that. That's actually a more general problem we have
Speaker 3: in this country that legal services for small scale losses
Speaker 3: of this kind very often outstrip which you can gain
Speaker 3: from getting back what you lost. In the Tim's case,
Speaker 3: it's pretty obvious that Tyson Timms could not have won
Speaker 3: this case without getting excellent pro bono representation NIA two
Speaker 3: for Justice, which represented him for free from start to finish.
Speaker 3: And they, of course weren't solely interested in the particular
Speaker 3: vehicle at stake in this case. They wanted to set
Speaker 3: a general precedent.
Speaker 1: And a great job on the production by Monty Montgomery
Speaker 1: and a special thanks to Iliyah Suhman for telling us
Speaker 1: this story. He's a law professor at George Mason University.
Speaker 1: Check out his book Free to Move Foot, Voting, Migration
Speaker 1: and Political Freedom and you can find that at Amazon
Speaker 1: dot com. Tyson Tim's Case another installment in our great
Speaker 1: Rule of Law series here on our American Story