Indiana Supreme Court
State of Indiana v. Tyson Timbs
October 28, 2019
Summary
The Indiana Supreme Court held that a use‑based in rem forfeiture is a fine subject to the Eighth Amendment’s Excessive Fines Clause and that excessiveness requires (1) the property be an actual instrumentality of the crime and (2) the forfeiture not be grossly disproportional to the offense’s gravity and the owner’s culpability. The court found Timbs’s Land Rover to be an instrumentality and remanded for a proportionality analysis. Justice Slaughter dissented, arguing for a simpler instrumentality‑only test.