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Will the Supreme Court step in Trumps NY Case based on the eighth? They have in the past. Below is what happened.
Ginsburg delivered the high court’s opinion in Timbs v. Indiana on Feb. 20, 2019, in which she laid out how the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on excessive fines applies to the states as well as the federal government.
In that case, Indiana police had seized Tyson Timbs’ Land Rover SUV, which he had purchased for $42,000 with money he received from a life insurance policy when his father died. After Timbs pleaded guilty to drug dealing and conspiracy to commit theft, he was fined $10,000 and the state sought civil forfeiture of the vehicle. The judge ruled that taking the vehicle was an excessive fine because it was worth four times the penalty and excessive fines are prohibited by the Constitution’s Eighth Amendment.
The ruling was upheld by the Court of Appeals, but the Indiana Supreme Court overturned it on the grounds that the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on excessive fines only applies to the federal government and not to the states.
In a unanimous decision, the U.S. Supreme Court said that it does, in fact, bind the states as well.
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