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Speaker 1: And we return to our American stories. And now it's

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Speaker 1: time for another rule of law story, which is a

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Speaker 1: part of our rule of Law series, where we showcase

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Speaker 1: what happens in the absence and the presence of the

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Speaker 1: rule of law in our lives. Things like property rights

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Speaker 1: that we just take for granted courts and an independent judiciary,

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Speaker 1: separation of powers which gives meaning to that independence of

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Speaker 1: the judiciary, and contract rights, things that in other countries. Well,

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Speaker 1: good luck, and by the way, that rule of law

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Speaker 1: extends to all of us, good and bad and in between.

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Speaker 1: Here's our own Monty Montgomery with the story of a

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Speaker 1: man who violated what would seem to be a clear

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Speaker 1: cut law and the long winded case that he became

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Speaker 1: wrapped up in as a result.

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Speaker 2: In twenty twelve, Tyson Tims found himself on the receiving

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Speaker 2: end of a decent amount of cash following the death

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Speaker 2: of his father.

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Speaker 3: He promptly bought a nice car.

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Speaker 2: And a year later drove out to sell some drugs

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Speaker 2: to undercover cops. Here's Ilia Sohman with the rest of

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Speaker 2: the story.

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Speaker 4: So he was caught and he was charged with a

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Speaker 4: small scale drug offence. He admitted that he did commit

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Speaker 4: a crime, but when he drove to this transaction, he

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Speaker 4: was driving his land Rover SUV, which according to estimates,

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Speaker 4: was worth something like between forty and forty two thousand dollars.

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Speaker 4: So the state of Indiana seized the land Rover through

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Speaker 4: asset forfeiture.

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Speaker 3: But what's asset forfeiture.

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Speaker 2: And why did law enforcement decide to leave Tyson without

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Speaker 2: his wheels over a drug offence?

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Speaker 4: Asset forfeiture sure is a practice whereby government can confiscate

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Speaker 4: property that was used in a crime, such as a

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Speaker 4: car or in some cases, even something as major as

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Speaker 4: a house. And often they can do it even if

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Speaker 4: the owner of the property was never convicted of any crime,

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Speaker 4: and indeed even if he or she was never charged

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Speaker 4: for it. So you get examples like the police will

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Speaker 4: stop someone's car, perhaps for a minor traffic violation. Then

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Speaker 4: they'll ask to search the car, and then they find

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Speaker 4: some money in the car. Say you're transporting cash that

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Speaker 4: some people do. The police might decide it seems likely

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Speaker 4: that this money was acquired in a drug transaction or

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Speaker 4: some kind of other illegal transaction. They take the car

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Speaker 4: potentially and the money as well. Similarly, if, for instance,

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Speaker 4: you lent your car to a friend, and then the

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Speaker 4: friend was suspected of driving it to buy legal drug,

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Speaker 4: then your car could be confiscated, even though you may

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Speaker 4: not even have known that your friend was going to

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Speaker 4: use it for that purpose. And sometimes that can have

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Speaker 4: and even if the friend himself never get charged with anything,

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Speaker 4: And there are many many examples like this. They vary

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Speaker 4: somewhat by state, but the basic idea is that the

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Speaker 4: government can seize property that they think might have been

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Speaker 4: used in a crime in many cases, in most states,

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Speaker 4: they don't have to prove that it actually happened. They

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Speaker 4: certainly don't have to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt. Indeed,

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Speaker 4: the procedures in many states are such that once they

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Speaker 4: seize your property for asset forfeiture, the awardness and effect

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Speaker 4: falls on you to prove that you're innocent or the

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Speaker 4: property wasn't used in a crime. And often the cost

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Speaker 4: of getting the property back is actually more valuable than

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Speaker 4: the property itself, So if they see something that's worth

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Speaker 4: five hundred or one thousand, or even two or three

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Speaker 4: thousand dollars, as is often the case, in order to

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Speaker 4: litigate the issue and get it back, even if you're successful.

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Speaker 4: You may have to pay a lawyer more money than

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Speaker 4: the property is worth, and it may take you many

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Speaker 4: weeks for many months to even get a hearing about it,

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Speaker 4: much west get the property back.

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Speaker 2: Now, at this point you may be thinking, big deal.

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Speaker 2: Guy buys expensive car. Guy drives the car to sell

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Speaker 2: drugs to undercover cops. Guy gets punished. Who cares about

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Speaker 2: his car?

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Speaker 3: This seems just.

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Speaker 2: But the issue here isn't the taking of the car.

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Speaker 2: It's that there was no due process to take it.

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Speaker 2: And law enforcement can sell assets seized via forfeiture and

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Speaker 2: add it to their budgets. And if you want your

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Speaker 2: stuff back, you have to take them to court using

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Speaker 2: money you probably don't have. There's no accountability, there's no

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Speaker 2: rule of law. So Tyson went to court.

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Speaker 4: And Tyson Tims represented by the Institute for Justice. They

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Speaker 4: argued that this seizure viuated the excessive fines clause of

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Speaker 4: the Eighth Amendment. The Eighth Amendment is best known for

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Speaker 4: or forbidding cruel and unusual punishment, but it also forbids excessive.

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Speaker 2: Finds, and thus began a game of pinball for Tyson

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Speaker 2: Tims and the Institute for Justice.

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Speaker 3: Between court systems.

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Speaker 4: So this case is unusual even by the standards of

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Speaker 4: federal Supreme Court cases. That not only did it reach

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Speaker 4: the Federal Supreme Court, but there are also three separate

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Speaker 4: Indiana State Supreme Court decisions, and there are not many

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Speaker 4: Supreme Court cases historically which are like that. That's extremely unusual,

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Speaker 4: and the case raised two important issues that the Supreme

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Speaker 4: Court had never previously resolved. One is whether the Excessive

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Speaker 4: Fines cause even applies to state and local governments at all,

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Speaker 4: as opposed to just a federal government. Overlying period of time,

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Speaker 4: the Supreme Court has gradually decided that nearly every other

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Speaker 4: part of the Bill of Rights, with a few exceptions,

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Speaker 4: applies to state and local governments and not just to

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Speaker 4: federal government. But they had never decided this would respect

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Speaker 4: to the Excessive Fines cause. So when the case initially

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Speaker 4: reached the State Supreme Court of Indiana, the state Supreme

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Speaker 4: Court said, well, this doesn't apply to the states, or

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Speaker 4: if it does, we the Supreme Court of Indiana can't

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Speaker 4: say that it does. Only the federal Supreme Court can

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Speaker 4: make that decision. The other big issue is, let's assume

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Speaker 4: the Excessive Fines Cause does apply to state governments do

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Speaker 4: asset forfeitures qualify as excessive fines because maybe ASCID four

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Speaker 4: veritures just aren't finds at all. That's another thing that

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Speaker 4: the State of Indiana argued in this case. So when

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Speaker 4: the case got to the Supreme Court, the court actually

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Speaker 4: showed a rare degree of unanimity. All nine justices, both

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Speaker 4: liberal and conservative, concluded that the cause does in fact

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Speaker 4: apply to state governments and local governments as well as

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Speaker 4: the federal government. Everybody, I think expected that outcome would

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Speaker 4: have been very surprising if the court had said, no,

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Speaker 4: this is the one part of the Bill Rights that

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Speaker 4: doesn't apply against the states. Secondly, they also ruled that

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Speaker 4: at least some asset forfeitures can indeed be finds excessive finds,

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Speaker 4: and therefore, if they're big enough, they could be struck

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Speaker 4: down as excessive. And they rejected the argument to forfeitures

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Speaker 4: just aren't finds at all, because the state did argue

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Speaker 4: that this is just an attempt to seize property you

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Speaker 4: use for legal purposes. It's not really a punishment of

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Speaker 4: the person who committed the offense, or maybe even in

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Speaker 4: many cases didn't commit any offense. And I need a

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Speaker 4: court ruled correctly that finds and forfeitures are sufficiently similar

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Speaker 4: that many, if not all, asset forfeitures can in fact

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Speaker 4: qualify as finds. But the court left opened the issue

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Speaker 4: of what is it exactly that makes an asset forfeiture excessive?

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Speaker 4: And this issue has ended up in the lower courts

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Speaker 4: with the result that even the specific case of Tyson

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Speaker 4: Tims actually made it back to the Indiana Supreme Court

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Speaker 4: two more times, one time where the Indiana Supreme Court

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Speaker 4: set up a test for how they think the excess

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Speaker 4: on this of defined should be determined, and then a

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Speaker 4: second case where even though the test that they shet up,

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Speaker 4: I think it was clear that Tyson Tims should win

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Speaker 4: under that test, because, among other things, the value of

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Speaker 4: the wand Rover is about four times the maximum find

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Speaker 4: that you could get for a criminal conviction in Indiana

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Speaker 4: for the type of illegal drug transaction that he attempted.

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Speaker 4: But nonetheless, the State of Indiana, much like Inspector Javert

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Speaker 4: in Wayne Miserabwe, they continued their single mind in pursuit

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Speaker 4: of the wand Rover. They didn't want to give it up,

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Speaker 4: so they continued to litigate the case. So it went

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Speaker 4: back to the state Supreme Court yet again. This is

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Speaker 4: the third time the case went to the Indiana State

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Speaker 4: Supreme Court, and in that instance, the Indiana State Supreme

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Speaker 4: Court finally ruled that Tyson Tims could in fact get

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Speaker 4: his land rover back. So, after a legal battle that

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Speaker 4: lasted some seven years, Tyson Tims did in fact recover

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Speaker 4: the wand Rover and is now happily driving it. Now.

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Speaker 4: Most cases don't go through that lawing a process or

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Speaker 4: are that costly. I don't know how much money IJ

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Speaker 4: spent litigating this case, but it is probably into several

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Speaker 4: hundreds of thousands of dollars or even more so obvious

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Speaker 4: who is more than the value of the wand Rover.

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Speaker 4: Even though the wand Rover is a fairly expensive and

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Speaker 4: valuable vehicle, as I said before, it's worth about forty

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Speaker 4: thousand dollars. That said, the typical asset forfeiture probably involves

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Speaker 4: mounts in the range of property worth five hundred or

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Speaker 4: one thousand dollars, and even the lawyer's fees for a

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Speaker 4: more conventional case will easily exceed that. That's actually a

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Speaker 4: more general problem we have in this country that legal

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Speaker 4: services for small scale losses of this kind very often

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Speaker 4: outstrip which you can gain from getting back what you lost.

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Speaker 4: In the Tim's case, it's pretty obvious that Tyson Timms

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Speaker 4: could not have won this case without getting excellent pro

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Speaker 4: bono representation NITH two for Justice, which represented him for

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Speaker 4: free from start to finish. And they, of course weren't

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Speaker 4: solely interested in the particular vehicle at stake in this case.

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Speaker 4: They wanted to set a general precedent.

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Speaker 1: And a great job on the production by Monte Montgomery

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Speaker 1: and a special thanks to Iliyah Suhman for telling us

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Speaker 1: this story. He's a law professor at George Mason University.

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Speaker 1: Check out his book Free Tom, Move Foot, Voting, Migration

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Speaker 1: and Political Freedom and you can find that at Amazon

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Speaker 1: dot com. Tyson Tim's Case another installment in our great

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Speaker 1: Rule of Law series Here on our American Story