Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/524bv.pdf
Page Number: 366.0

524US2

Unit: $U89

[09-11-00 13:24:46] PAGES PGT: OPIN

OCTOBER TERM, 1997

321

Syllabus

UNITED STATES v. BAJAKAJIAN

certiorari to the united states court of appeals for
the ninth circuit

No. 96–1487. Argued November 4, 1997—Decided June 22, 1998

After customs inspectors found respondent and his family preparing to
board an international ﬂight carrying $357,144, he was charged with,
inter alia, attempting to leave the United States without reporting, as
required by 31 U. S. C. § 5316(a)(1)(A), that he was transporting more
than $10,000 in currency. The Government also sought forfeiture of
the $357,144 under 18 U. S. C. § 982(a)(1), which provides that a person
convicted of willfully violating § 5316 shall forfeit “any property . . .
involved in such an offense.” Respondent pleaded guilty to the failure
to report and elected to have a bench trial on the forfeiture. The Dis-
trict Court found, among other things, that the entire $357,144 was sub-
ject to forfeiture because it was “involved in” the offense, that the funds
were not connected to any other crime, and that respondent was trans-
porting the money to repay a lawful debt. Concluding that full for-
feiture would be grossly disproportional to the offense in question
and would therefore violate the Excessive Fines Clause of the Eighth
Amendment, the court ordered forfeiture of $15,000, in addition to three
years’ probation and the maximum ﬁne of $5,000 under the Sentencing
Guidelines. The Ninth Circuit afﬁrmed, holding that a forfeiture must
fulﬁll two conditions to satisfy the Clause: The property forfeited must
be an “instrumentality” of the crime committed, and the property’s
value must be proportional to its owner’s culpability. The court deter-
mined that respondent’s currency was not an “instrumentality” of the
crime of failure to report, which involves the withholding of information
rather than the possession or transportation of money; that, therefore,
§ 982(a)(1) could never satisfy the Clause in a currency forfeiture case;
that it was unnecessary to apply the “proportionality” prong of the test;
and that the Clause did not permit forfeiture of any of the unreported
currency, but that the court lacked jurisdiction to set the $15,000 forfeit-
ure aside because respondent had not cross-appealed to challenge it.

Held: Full forfeiture of respondent’s $357,144 would violate the Excessive

Fines Clause. Pp. 327–344.

(a) The forfeiture at issue is a “ﬁne” within the meaning of the Clause,
which provides that “excessive ﬁnes [shall not be] imposed.” The
Clause limits the Government’s power to extract payments, whether in
cash or in kind, as punishment for some offense. Austin v. United