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Good thing, it only took about 35 years or so. This was one of legacies of the glorious War On Drugs.
One of the most important things about this rule is that the court found that the eighth amendment protections against excessive fines and punishments apply to state/city governments as well, meaning it's finally officially incorporated.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incorporation_of_the_Bill_of_R...
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As a permanent resident who lives in the US, the idea that basic protections of law should only apply to citizens is terrifying. It's not the same outcome at all. Due process is afforded to "persons".
No country on Earth affords equal rights to citizens and non-citizens. If this "terrifies" you, I encourage you to reflect on your fears and whether some of them may be disproportionate to reality.
> Justice Thomas agreed with the result in the case, Timbs v. Indiana, No. 17-1091, but said he would have gotten to the same place by a different route. While the majority relied on the due process clause of the 14th Amendment, Justice Thomas said he would have ruled “the right to be free from excessive fines is one of the ‘privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States’ protected by the 14th Amendment.”…
Justice Thomas has been fighting a long battle trying to restore the Privileges or Immunities Clause of the 14th amendment after it was effectively removed from the constitution in the Slaughter-House Cases. He'll often issue dissents or concurrences just to raise the issue of the Privileges or Immunities Clause. The Institute For Justice (who argued this case, somewhat coincidentally) has a podcast about the 14th Am…
Here's a twitter thread about it: https://twitter.com/MDAppeal/status/1098244852721115136
Tl;dr It means that the incorporation only applies to CITIZENS, not persons. So citizens united wouldn't apply to the states, but neither would the bill of rights to non-naturalized immigrants with regards to the states.
What I'd like to know is if private property that was seized in the past will be returned? One of my friend's dad had a hip surgery and was bed bound for a few weeks. The family had to be at work so they hired a live in helper who was an older woman in her 60s. This older woman's story was a tragic one to hear. She had immigrated from Asia to US with her husband and family and had managed to buy a 3bed house. Well li…
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This is largely a straightforward thing to do - and this ruling will make police departments much more hesitant to seize civil assets.
Is it straightforward to do without a lawyer, though? What if you can't afford one?
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"Ruling Requires Cities and States—Not Just the Federal Government— To Abide by the Eighth Amendment’s Excessive Fines Clause" Wow, this is pretty big. They just extended constitutional protection of this clause to lower levels of government.
Yeah, that's interesting. The Fourteenth Amendment clearly applies to states; less so to cities/towns. Seems like SCOTUS is coming solidly down on the "of course they meant any level of government, folks".
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> In the court case, a man had his car seized when caught selling a few hundred dollars of heroine. Interesting perspective there. Some people think that heroin dealers deserve to be fully hung, drawn and quartered, their head placed on a spike to be pecked at by the crows. Others might think that 'it was just a bit of dope, why should he have to forfeit anything for that?'. The car is potentially proceeds of crime i…
>The car is potentially proceeds of crime Then the state must prove that case rather than it being in implicit assumption.
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What Ginsburg situation?
I'm laughing my ass off. GP claimed that Justice Ginsburg is actually dead and her opinions (including on this case) are being ghost written.
I pizzagate came up in a discussion with a friend of mine - both of us wondered how hard it would be to create a conspiracy theory from whole cloth, and get widespread belief in it - both of us were a little disconcerted that a mere individual would have that much power - but that is the issue with social media to an extent.