Supreme Court to decide whether taking drug dealer's Land Rover is 'excessive'

For Tyson Timbs, the idea that his legal dispute with the state of Indiana could reach the U.S. Supreme Court began in jest.

“I joked about it in the beginning, saying, ‘Hey, maybe I can change the law or maybe this will go all the way to the Supreme Court,’” Timbs told the Washington Examiner. “It was just a joke.”

But on Wednesday, what was a distant possibility will become a reality for Timbs, 37, when the Supreme Court hears oral argument in a case that began after the state of Indiana seized his 2012 Land Rover LR2, which he had used to transport heroin en route to drug deals with undercover police.

Timbs’ case has brought together a diverse coalition of very odd bedfellows to support him, with groups like the American Civil Liberties Union and the Southern Poverty Law Center allied with the conservative Americans for Prosperity and U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

The court will be tasked then with deciding whether the Eighth Amendment’s Excessive Fines Clause applies to the states under the 14 ^th Amendment, which says states cannot deprive anyone “of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.”

The Eighth Amendment provides “excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.”

“The question whether it’s incorporated really boils down to whether state and local governments can excessively sanction you economically and whether there is any constitutional backstop preventing state and local prosecutors from taking everything you own,” Sam Gedge, a lawyer with the Institute for Justice, which represents Timbs, told theWashington Examiner.

Timbs’ case dates back more than five years, when he received roughly $73,000 from a life insurance payout after his father’s death in 2012. Timbs used the money to purchase the Land Rover for nearly $42,000 and spent most of the remaining proceeds on drugs.

After the money from the life insurance policy ran dry, Timbs sold heroin on two separate occasions — driving the Land Rover in one of those instances — to undercover police officers. While on his way to a third transaction in May 2013, he was pulled over and arrested.

Timbs, who now works as a machinist in a factory, pleaded guilty in 2015 to one count of dealing in a controlled substance and was sentenced to one year of home detention and five years of probation. He also had to pay court fees and fines totaling $1,200.

Timbs entered rehab and has been clean for three years, he and his lawyer say. He has participated in his county’s substance abuse task force, he said, and has met with inmates at the local county jail.

“I've started to live like a regular human being should for the most part," he said. "I’m finally able to start looking forward to planning the rest of my life, hopefully get married in the next year or two. Things have been really good.”

But following his arrest, the state of Indiana moved to take Timbs’ Land Rover through civil forfeiture, which allows law enforcement to seize property if they suspect it's tied to criminal activity.

Timbs’ Land Rover remains in the state’s possession, which has created complications. Timbs and his aunt share her vehicle, and because of this, she has to take the city bus to kidney dialysis appointments three days a week.

“I have to rely on people occasionally. For me, a lot of times, it’s been more of a self-esteem thing,” Timbs said. “That’s a thing that bothers me the most, that it’s not always the people that have made the mistake that have to pay. It’s the people around them that are put out too.”

After Timbs was convicted, a trial court found that while he used the Land Rover to transport heroin back to Marion, Ind., where he lives with his aunt, forfeiture of the vehicle would be “grossly disproportional to the gravity” of his offense and unconstitutional under the Excessive Fines Clause.

In his ruling, Judge Jeffrey Todd of the Grant County Superior Court wrote that Timbs’ vehicle was worth roughly four times the maximum monetary fine of $10,000 the state could have levied against him.

A divided panel of three judges on the Indiana Court of Appeals agreed, finding that forfeiture of the Land Rover would be unconstitutionally excessive.

The Indiana Supreme Court, however, unanimously reversed the lower court’s decision, ruling the U.S. Supreme Court “has never held that the states are subject to the Excessive Fines Clause.”

It’s that unanswered question that the justices in the nation’s highest court will seek to address Wednesday.

“It’s increasingly important in the 21st century when you see the federal government and state and local authorities resorting to fines and forfeitures not to do justice, but to bolster their own budgets,” Gedge said. “There’s a real fear that they’ll be levied disproportionately, and that’s why the Excessive Fines Clause exists to curtail.”

The ACLU, R Street Institute, Southern Poverty Law Center, and the Fines and Fees Justice Center wrote in a friend-of-the-court brief filed with the Supreme Court: "The Excessive Fines Clause] represents an essential safeguard against severe monetary sanctions and asset seizures. Properly construed, the clause requires consideration of both the gravity of the offense and whether a monetary sanction or forfeiture will deprive individuals of their livelihood. ... Incorporation of the Excessive Fines Clause is necessary to check abuse of fines, fees, and forfeitures throughout the country."

If the Supreme Court rules in Timbs’ favor, Gedge anticipates the justices will send the case back to the Indiana Supreme Court to consider whether forfeiting the Land Rover is excessive under the Eighth Amendment.

Timbs will be in the audience for arguments at the high court Wednesday, and while a ruling is expected from the justices by the end of June, he said a win would be “like the cherry on top of the cake.”