May 9, 2024 • 10 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, Elyia Somin tells the story of Timbs v. Indiana and the 7 year game of court pingpong it took for one man to get his Land Rover back.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
And we return to our American stories. And now it's
time for another rule of law story, which is a
part of our rule of Law series, where we showcase
what happens in the absence and the presence of the
rule of law in our lives. Things like property rights
that we just take for granted, courts in an independent judiciary,
(00:30):
separation of powers which gives meaning to that independence of
the judiciary, and contract rights, things that in other countries. Well,
good luck, and by the way, that rule of law
extends to all of us, good and bad and in between.
Here's our own Montay Montgomery with the story of a
man who violated what would seem to be a clear
cut law and the long winded case that he became
(00:53):
wrapped up in as a result.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
In twenty twelve, Tyson Tims found himself on the receiving
end of a decent amount of cash following the death
of his father. He promptly bought a nice car and
a year later drove out to sell some drugs to
undercover cops. Here's Ilia Sohman with the rest of the story.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
So he was caught and he was charged with a
small scale drug offence. He admitted that he did commit
a crime, but when he drove to this transaction, he
was driving his land Rover SUV, which according to estimates,
was worth something like between forty and forty two thousand dollars.
So the state of Indiana seized the land Rover through
(01:46):
asset forfeiture.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
But what's asset forfeiture and why did law enforcement decide
to leave Tyson without his wheels over a drug offence?
Speaker 3 (01:59):
Asset forfeit sure is a practice whereby government can confiscate
property that was used in a crime, such as a
car or in some cases, even something as major as
a house. And often they can do it even if
the owner of the property was never convicted of any crime,
and indeed even if he or she was never charged
fort it. So you get examples like the police will
(02:22):
stop someone's car, perhaps for a minor traffic violation. Then
they'll ask to search the car, and then they find
some money in the car. Say you're transporting cash that
some people do. The police might decide it seems likely
that this money was acquired in a drug transaction or
some kind of other illegal transaction. They take the car
potentially and the money as well. Similarly, if, for instance,
(02:45):
you lent your car to a friend and then the
friend was suspected of driving it to buy illegal drug,
then your car could be confiscated, even though you may
not even have known that your friend was going to
use it for that purpose. And sometimes that can have
and even if the friend himself never get charged with anything,
(03:06):
And there are many many examples like this. They vary
somewhat by state, but the basic idea is that the
government can seize property that they think might have been
used in a crime in many cases, in most states,
they don't have to prove that it actually happened. They
certainly don't have to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt. Indeed,
the procedures in many states are such that once they
(03:28):
seize your property for asset forfeiture, thewordness and effect falls
on you to prove that you're innocent or the property
wasn't used in a crime. And often the cost of
getting the property back is actually more valuable than the
property itself. So if they see something that's worth five
hundred or a thousand, or even two or three thousand dollars,
as is often the case, in order to litigate the
(03:50):
issue and get it back, even if you're successful. You
may have to pay a lawyer more money than the
property is worth, and it may take you many weeks
for many months to even get a hearing about it,
much west get the property back.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
Now, at this point you may be thinking, big deal.
Guy buys expensive car. Guy drives the car to sell
drugs to undercover cops. Guy gets punished. Who cares about
his car? This seems just. But the issue here isn't
the taking of the car. It's that there was no
due process to take it. And law enforcement can sell
(04:28):
assets seized via forfeiture and add it to their budgets.
And if you want your stuff back, you have to
take them to court using money you probably don't have.
There's no accountability, there's no rule of law. So Tyson
went to court.
Speaker 3 (04:48):
And Tyson Tims represented by the Institute for Justice. They
argued that this seizure viuated the excessive fines cause of
the Eighth Amendment. The eight Amendment is best known for
or forbidding cruel and unusual punishment, but it also forbids
excessive fines.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
And thus began a game of pinball for Tyson Tims
and the Institute for Justice between court systems.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
So this case is unusual even by the standards of
federal Supreme Court cases. That not only did it reach
the Federal Supreme Court, but there are also three separate
Indiana State Supreme Court decisions, and there are not many
Supreme Court cases historically which are like that. That's extremely unusual.
(05:35):
And the case raised two important issues that the Supreme
Court had never previously resolved. One is whether the Excessive
Fines Cause even applies to state and local governments at all,
as opposed to just a federal government. Overlying period of time,
the Supreme Court has gradually decided that nearly every other
part of the Bill of Rights, with a few exceptions,
(05:56):
applies to state and local governments and not just to
federal government. But they had never decided this would respect
to the Excessive Fines cause. So when the case initially
reached the State Supreme Court of Indiana, the state Supreme
Court said, well, this doesn't apply to the states, or
if it does, we the Supreme Court of Indiana can't
say that it does. Only the federal Supreme Court can
(06:17):
make that decision. The other big issue is, let's assume
the Excessive Fines Cause does apply to state governments. Do
asset forfeitures qualify as excessive fines, because maybe ASCID four
fitures just aren't fines at all. That's another thing that
the State of Indiana argued in this case. So when
(06:38):
the case got to the Supreme Court, the court actually
showed a rare degree of unanimity. All nine justices, both
liberal and conservative, concluded that the cause does in fact
apply to state governments and local governments as well as
the federal government. Everybody, I think expected that outcome would
have been very surprising if the court had said, no,
this is the one part of the Bill Rights that
(07:00):
doesn't apply against the states. Secondly, they also ruled that
at least some asset forfeitures can indeed be finds excessive finds,
and therefore, if they're big enough, they could be struck
down as excessive. And they rejected the argument to forfeitures
just aren't finds at all, because the state did argue
(07:21):
that this is just an attempt to seize property you
use for legal purposes. It's not really a punishment of
the person who committed the offense, or maybe even in
many cases, didn't commit any offense. And I need a
court ruled correctly that finds and forfeitures are sufficiently similar
that many, if not all, asset forfeitures can in fact
(07:41):
qualify as finds. But the court left opened the issue
of what is an exact weed that makes an asset
forfeiture excessive? And this issue has ended up in the
lower courts with the result that even the specific case
of Tyson Tims, actually we made it back to the
Indiana Supreme Court two more times, one time where the
(08:06):
Indiana Supreme Court set up a test for how they
think the excessiveness of defined should be determined, and then
a second case where even though the test that they
shet up, I think it was clear that Tyson Tims
should win under that test, because, among other things, the
value of the wand Rover is about four times the
maximum find that you could get for a criminal conviction
(08:27):
in Indiana for the type of illegal drug transaction that
he attempted. But none the less, the State of Indiana,
much like Inspector Javert in Wayne Miserabwe, they continued their
single minded pursuit of the wand Rover. They didn't want
to give it up, so they continued to litigate the case.
So it went back to the State Supreme court yet again.
This is the third time the case went to the
(08:49):
Indiana State Supreme Court, and in that instance, the Indiana
State Supreme Court finally ruled that Tyson Tims could in
fact get his wand Rover back. So, after a legal
battle that lasted some seven years, Tyson Tims did in
factor recover the land Rover and is now halfily driving it. Now.
(09:12):
Most cases don't go through that lawing a process or
are that costly. I don't know how much money IJ
spent litigating this case, but it is probably into several
hundreds of thousands of dollars or even more so. Obviously,
who is more than the value of the wand Rover.
Even though the land Rover is a fairly expensive and
valuable vehicle, as I said before, it's worth about forty
(09:33):
thousand dollars. That said, the typical asset forfeiture probably involves
a mounts in the range of property worth five hundred
or one thousand dollars, and even the lawyer's fees for
a more conventional case will easily exceed that. That's actually
a more general problem we have in this country that
legal services for small scale losses of this kind very
(09:54):
often outstrip which you can gain from getting back what
you lost in the Tim's case. It's pretty obvious that
Tyson Timms could not have won this case without getting
excellent pro bono representation NITH two for Justice, which represented
him for free from start to finish. And they, of
course weren't solely interested in the particular vehicle at stake
(10:14):
in this case. They wanted to set a general precedent.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
And a great job on the production by Monty Montgomery
and a special thanks to Iliyah Suhman for telling us
this story. He's a law professor at George Mason University.
Check out his book Free to Move Foot, Voting, Migration
and Political Freedom and you can find that at Amazon
dot com. Tyson Tim's Case another installment in our great
Rule of Law series Here on our American Story
And we return to our American stories. And now it's
time for another rule of law story, which is a
part of our rule of Law series, where we showcase
what happens in the absence and the presence of the
rule of law in our lives. Things like property rights
that we just take for granted, courts in an independent judiciary,
(00:30):
separation of powers which gives meaning to that independence of
the judiciary, and contract rights, things that in other countries. Well,
good luck, and by the way, that rule of law
extends to all of us, good and bad and in between.
Here's our own Montay Montgomery with the story of a
man who violated what would seem to be a clear
cut law and the long winded case that he became
(00:53):
wrapped up in as a result.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
In twenty twelve, Tyson Tims found himself on the receiving
end of a decent amount of cash following the death
of his father. He promptly bought a nice car and
a year later drove out to sell some drugs to
undercover cops. Here's Ilia Sohman with the rest of the story.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
So he was caught and he was charged with a
small scale drug offence. He admitted that he did commit
a crime, but when he drove to this transaction, he
was driving his land Rover SUV, which according to estimates,
was worth something like between forty and forty two thousand dollars.
So the state of Indiana seized the land Rover through
(01:46):
asset forfeiture.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
But what's asset forfeiture and why did law enforcement decide
to leave Tyson without his wheels over a drug offence?
Speaker 3 (01:59):
Asset forfeit sure is a practice whereby government can confiscate
property that was used in a crime, such as a
car or in some cases, even something as major as
a house. And often they can do it even if
the owner of the property was never convicted of any crime,
and indeed even if he or she was never charged
fort it. So you get examples like the police will
(02:22):
stop someone's car, perhaps for a minor traffic violation. Then
they'll ask to search the car, and then they find
some money in the car. Say you're transporting cash that
some people do. The police might decide it seems likely
that this money was acquired in a drug transaction or
some kind of other illegal transaction. They take the car
potentially and the money as well. Similarly, if, for instance,
(02:45):
you lent your car to a friend and then the
friend was suspected of driving it to buy illegal drug,
then your car could be confiscated, even though you may
not even have known that your friend was going to
use it for that purpose. And sometimes that can have
and even if the friend himself never get charged with anything,
(03:06):
And there are many many examples like this. They vary
somewhat by state, but the basic idea is that the
government can seize property that they think might have been
used in a crime in many cases, in most states,
they don't have to prove that it actually happened. They
certainly don't have to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt. Indeed,
the procedures in many states are such that once they
(03:28):
seize your property for asset forfeiture, thewordness and effect falls
on you to prove that you're innocent or the property
wasn't used in a crime. And often the cost of
getting the property back is actually more valuable than the
property itself. So if they see something that's worth five
hundred or a thousand, or even two or three thousand dollars,
as is often the case, in order to litigate the
(03:50):
issue and get it back, even if you're successful. You
may have to pay a lawyer more money than the
property is worth, and it may take you many weeks
for many months to even get a hearing about it,
much west get the property back.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
Now, at this point you may be thinking, big deal.
Guy buys expensive car. Guy drives the car to sell
drugs to undercover cops. Guy gets punished. Who cares about
his car? This seems just. But the issue here isn't
the taking of the car. It's that there was no
due process to take it. And law enforcement can sell
(04:28):
assets seized via forfeiture and add it to their budgets.
And if you want your stuff back, you have to
take them to court using money you probably don't have.
There's no accountability, there's no rule of law. So Tyson
went to court.
Speaker 3 (04:48):
And Tyson Tims represented by the Institute for Justice. They
argued that this seizure viuated the excessive fines cause of
the Eighth Amendment. The eight Amendment is best known for
or forbidding cruel and unusual punishment, but it also forbids
excessive fines.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
And thus began a game of pinball for Tyson Tims
and the Institute for Justice between court systems.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
So this case is unusual even by the standards of
federal Supreme Court cases. That not only did it reach
the Federal Supreme Court, but there are also three separate
Indiana State Supreme Court decisions, and there are not many
Supreme Court cases historically which are like that. That's extremely unusual.
(05:35):
And the case raised two important issues that the Supreme
Court had never previously resolved. One is whether the Excessive
Fines Cause even applies to state and local governments at all,
as opposed to just a federal government. Overlying period of time,
the Supreme Court has gradually decided that nearly every other
part of the Bill of Rights, with a few exceptions,
(05:56):
applies to state and local governments and not just to
federal government. But they had never decided this would respect
to the Excessive Fines cause. So when the case initially
reached the State Supreme Court of Indiana, the state Supreme
Court said, well, this doesn't apply to the states, or
if it does, we the Supreme Court of Indiana can't
say that it does. Only the federal Supreme Court can
(06:17):
make that decision. The other big issue is, let's assume
the Excessive Fines Cause does apply to state governments. Do
asset forfeitures qualify as excessive fines, because maybe ASCID four
fitures just aren't fines at all. That's another thing that
the State of Indiana argued in this case. So when
(06:38):
the case got to the Supreme Court, the court actually
showed a rare degree of unanimity. All nine justices, both
liberal and conservative, concluded that the cause does in fact
apply to state governments and local governments as well as
the federal government. Everybody, I think expected that outcome would
have been very surprising if the court had said, no,
this is the one part of the Bill Rights that
(07:00):
doesn't apply against the states. Secondly, they also ruled that
at least some asset forfeitures can indeed be finds excessive finds,
and therefore, if they're big enough, they could be struck
down as excessive. And they rejected the argument to forfeitures
just aren't finds at all, because the state did argue
(07:21):
that this is just an attempt to seize property you
use for legal purposes. It's not really a punishment of
the person who committed the offense, or maybe even in
many cases, didn't commit any offense. And I need a
court ruled correctly that finds and forfeitures are sufficiently similar
that many, if not all, asset forfeitures can in fact
(07:41):
qualify as finds. But the court left opened the issue
of what is an exact weed that makes an asset
forfeiture excessive? And this issue has ended up in the
lower courts with the result that even the specific case
of Tyson Tims, actually we made it back to the
Indiana Supreme Court two more times, one time where the
(08:06):
Indiana Supreme Court set up a test for how they
think the excessiveness of defined should be determined, and then
a second case where even though the test that they
shet up, I think it was clear that Tyson Tims
should win under that test, because, among other things, the
value of the wand Rover is about four times the
maximum find that you could get for a criminal conviction
(08:27):
in Indiana for the type of illegal drug transaction that
he attempted. But none the less, the State of Indiana,
much like Inspector Javert in Wayne Miserabwe, they continued their
single minded pursuit of the wand Rover. They didn't want
to give it up, so they continued to litigate the case.
So it went back to the State Supreme court yet again.
This is the third time the case went to the
(08:49):
Indiana State Supreme Court, and in that instance, the Indiana
State Supreme Court finally ruled that Tyson Tims could in
fact get his wand Rover back. So, after a legal
battle that lasted some seven years, Tyson Tims did in
factor recover the land Rover and is now halfily driving it. Now.
(09:12):
Most cases don't go through that lawing a process or
are that costly. I don't know how much money IJ
spent litigating this case, but it is probably into several
hundreds of thousands of dollars or even more so. Obviously,
who is more than the value of the wand Rover.
Even though the land Rover is a fairly expensive and
valuable vehicle, as I said before, it's worth about forty
(09:33):
thousand dollars. That said, the typical asset forfeiture probably involves
a mounts in the range of property worth five hundred
or one thousand dollars, and even the lawyer's fees for
a more conventional case will easily exceed that. That's actually
a more general problem we have in this country that
legal services for small scale losses of this kind very
(09:54):
often outstrip which you can gain from getting back what
you lost in the Tim's case. It's pretty obvious that
Tyson Timms could not have won this case without getting
excellent pro bono representation NITH two for Justice, which represented
him for free from start to finish. And they, of
course weren't solely interested in the particular vehicle at stake
(10:14):
in this case. They wanted to set a general precedent.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
And a great job on the production by Monty Montgomery
and a special thanks to Iliyah Suhman for telling us
this story. He's a law professor at George Mason University.
Check out his book Free to Move Foot, Voting, Migration
and Political Freedom and you can find that at Amazon
dot com. Tyson Tim's Case another installment in our great
Rule of Law series Here on our American Story
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