Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Trump’s $355 million fine – Daily News

Let me let you know concerning the time Ruth Bader Ginsburg saved Donald Trump $355 million plus curiosity.

It was Feb. 20, 2019, and Justice Ginsburg delivered the opinion of the courtroom within the case of Timbs v. Indiana.

In that case, police in Indiana had seized Tyson Timbs’ Land Rover SUV, which he purchased for $42,000 with cash he obtained from a life insurance coverage coverage when his dad died. The state sought civil forfeiture of the automobile as a result of Timbs had pleaded responsible to drug dealing and conspiracy to commit theft. Nevertheless, the nice for the crime was solely $10,000 and the automobile was price 4 instances that. Taking the automobile was an extreme nice, the decide dominated, and extreme fines are prohibited by the Eighth Modification to the U.S. Structure. The Courtroom of Appeals agreed.

However then the Indiana Supreme Courtroom reversed the ruling on the grounds that the Eighth Modification’s prohibition on extreme fines applies solely to the federal authorities, and it doesn’t bind the states.

Sure it does, the U.S. Supreme Courtroom mentioned unanimously. Justices Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas wrote separate concurring opinions stating that they’d have arrived on the determination via totally different reasoning. However the conclusion was the identical.

“There may be no severe doubt that the Fourteenth Modification requires the States to respect the liberty from extreme fines enshrined within the Eighth Modification,” wrote Gorsuch.

“The Eighth Modification’s prohibi­tion on extreme fines applies in full to the States,” wrote Thomas.

“The Extreme Fines Clause traces its venerable lineage again to no less than 1215,” wrote Ginsburg, “Magna Carta required that financial sanctions ‘be proportioned to the unsuitable’ and ‘not be so massive as to deprive [an offender] of his livelihood.’”

Timbs v. Indiana was a landmark determination. It was the primary time the Supreme Courtroom had held that the Eighth Modification’s extreme fines clause utilized to the states. Simply 9 years earlier, in McDonald v. Chicago, the Supreme Courtroom had acknowledged in a footnote, “We by no means have determined whether or not … the Eighth Modification’s prohibition of extreme fines applies to the States,” pointing to the 1989 case of Browning-Ferris Industries of Vt., Inc. v. Kelco Disposal, Inc., through which the courtroom declined to resolve the problem.

McDonald v. Chicago was itself a landmark determination. In that case, the Supreme Courtroom mentioned for the primary time that the Second Modification applies to the states in addition to to the federal authorities.

“When ratified in 1791, the Invoice of Rights utilized solely to the Federal Authorities,” Justice Ginsburg wrote.

How that ultimately modified is a little-known a part of U.S. historical past that’s about to guard former President Trump from the state of New York.

The Fourteenth Modification was added to the Structure after the Civil Warfare, in 1868. It learn, partially, “No state shall make or implement any regulation which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of residents of the US; nor shall any State deprive any individual of life, liberty, or property, with out due technique of regulation; nor deny to any individual inside its jurisdiction the equal safety of the legal guidelines.”

Nevertheless, this didn’t instantly make the Invoice of Rights relevant to the states. That change started greater than 50 years later, in 1925. Within the case of Gitlow v. New York, the Supreme Courtroom floated the concept freedom of speech and of the press are assumed to be “among the many elementary private rights and ‘liberties’ protected by the due course of clause of the Fourteenth Modification from impairment by the states.”

Progressively over the subsequent century, the courtroom would decide and select provisions of the Invoice of Rights, declare them to be “elementary” or “deeply rooted” in our historical past, custom and “scheme of ordered liberty,” and make them binding on the states. (The historical past of this course of may be learn in Justice Samuel Alito’s opinion for the courtroom in McDonald v. Chicago.)

The Eighth Modification reads, “Extreme bail shall not be required, nor extreme fines imposed, nor merciless and weird punishments inflicted.”

The “merciless and weird punishments” clause was declared relevant to the states in 1962, in Robinson v. California. The “extreme bail” provision has utilized to the states for the reason that 1971 case of Schilb v. Kuebel. And the “extreme fines” prohibition has been binding on the states for the reason that 2019 Timbs case.

New York Decide Arthur F. Engoron fined the previous president and 2024 frontrunner an astronomical $355 million plus $100 million (and counting) in curiosity. Engoron additionally prohibited the Trump Group from taking loans from monetary establishments that do enterprise in New York for 3 years, and he banned Trump personally from working as a director or officer of any company or entity in New York for a similar interval. Engoron even refused Trump’s request for a 30-day extension of the due date to pay the nice, which New York requires earlier than he can enchantment the judgment.

This was a civil fraud trial, and not using a jury, through which the decide discovered Trump responsible of giving his belongings a too-high valuation to get good mortgage phrases, regardless that the financial institution adjusted these values downward earlier than approving a mortgage that was paid again absolutely and on time, with curiosity.