This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Thursday, January 10th, 2019.

I'm Kaye Brown.

What limits a state's ability to seize property as either used in a crime or the proceeds of crime.

We may soon find out in a case now before the US Supreme Court.

Sam Gage is an attorney for the Institute for Justice representing Tyson Tims in the case of

Tims v Indiana. We spoke last month. How has the excessive fines clause of the

Eighth Amendment been applied so far? the Supreme Court, but it has applied to classic punitive economic sanctions.

What are some of the biggest cases where it has been applied so far?

Sure, so the Austin case in 1993 was a case where the US Supreme Court said that the

excessive fines clause applies not just a kind of classic fines but also to

civil forfeitures and that really kind of set the ball rolling towards this protection.

At least against four percent.

So the seizure of property and we're not talking about just cash.

We're talking about possessions or assets that people possess like the taking of these things by a state by a government can

trigger some constitutional rights if you will yeah yeah amazingly yes. Amazingly, yes, that's right.

So if the government's taking your stuff to punish you,

then the excessive fines clause is one of the constitutional

protections that's in play.

And so Mr. Tim's had a vehicle taken from him. Mr. Tim's was a drug addict who also sold drugs and in dealing with his state of Indiana he had a vehicle seized that essentially, if I understand his argument correctly, had nothing to do with his use or selling of drugs.

That's right. So Tyson's car was at most tenuously linked to a one-off criminal offense, namely selling

two grams of heroin to undercover cops. The car wasn't purchased with drug

money, it was just something that he drove once what do people

...