Ilya Somin |The Volokh Conspiracy | 5.27.2020
Indiana Returns Land Rover Seized in Landmark Asset Forfeiture Case—But Continues the Legal Battle Over its Ultimate Fate
In Timbs v. Indiana, the US Supreme Court ruled that the Eighth Amendment's Excessive Fines Clause applies to state asset forfeiture seizures. But key issues were left for lower courts to resolve.
After a seven-year legal battle that resulted in a decision by the US Supreme Court and two (so far) by the Indiana State Supreme Court, the state of Indiana has finally returned a $40,000 land rover owned by Tyson Timbs, which had been seized through the asset forfeiture process. Reason's C.J. Ciaramella summarizes:
It's been almost seven years to the day since the state of Indiana seized resident Tyson Timbs' Land Rover for a drug crime, launching a legal odyssey that would take Timbs all the way to the Supreme Court and lead to a landmark ruling on civil asset forfeiture.
On Tuesday, Timbs arrived home to find that same Land Rover back in his driveway.
Although the Indiana Attorney General is still appealing Timbs' case at the Indiana Supreme Court—the third time the court has been asked to consider the tangled case of Timbs' SUV—his car has been returned for the moment, according to the Institute for Justice, a libertarian-leaning public interest law firm that represents Timbs and has challenged forfeiture laws in several states….
Timbs pleaded guilty in 2015 to selling heroin to undercover police officers and was sentenced to one year of house arrest and five years of probation. But Indiana also used a practice known as civil asset forfeiture to seize his $42,000 Land Rover, which Timbs purchased with money from his late father's life insurance payout, not the proceeds of drug sales….
More:
https://reason.com/2020/05/27/indiana-returns-land-rover-seized-in-landmark-asset-forfeiture-case-but-continues-the-legal-battle-over-its-ultimate-fate/
