Opinion ID: 1992117
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: halper and austin

Text: Halper arose from the federal criminal prosecution of 65 counts of false medicare claims. After the trial court sentenced Halper to 2 years in prison and a fine of $5,000, the government instigated further action against Halper under the civil counterpart to the criminal false claims statutes, which provided for monetary penalties. Although the government acknowledged that this civil penalty had some punitive purposes, it argued that the concurrent remedial purpose of the civil sanction precluded a finding that the penalty was punishment, and thus precluded double jeopardy scrutiny. Id. The Court rejected this interpretation of punishment and rendered a definition of punishment that is instructive to this court's task in this case. The emerging rule from Halper states that a civil sanction constitutes punishment when the sanction serves the goals of punishment. Id. at 448, 109 S.Ct. at 1902. The Court elaborated on this simple rule by holding that punishment serves the twin aims of retribution and deterrence.... Furthermore, [r]etribution and deterrence are not legitimate nonpunitive governmental objectives.... From these premises, it follows that a civil sanction that cannot fairly be said solely to serve a remedial purpose, but rather can only be explained as also serving either retributive or deterrent purposes, is punishment as we have come to understand the term. (Citations omitted.) Id. This language creates a simple equation: a sanction equals punishment, not a mere penalty, when the purpose behind the sanction impedes or has a tendency to prevent a given actwhen the State seeks, through this penalty, to deter its citizens from certain behavior. Having presented this simple equation, however, the Halper Court then obscured that simplicity by writing in the following paragraph that under the Double Jeopardy Clause, a defendant who already has been punished in a criminal prosecution may not be subjected to an additional civil sanction to the extent that the second sanction may not fairly be characterized as remedial, but only as a deterrent or retribution. 490 U.S. at 448-49, 109 S.Ct. at 1902. Many jurisdictions, including this court, have taken the apparent incongruity as an invitation to read Halper selectively, rejecting the simple equation and the language whence it derives in favor of this latter language. See, e.g., Hansen, supra ; Tench v. Com., 21 Va.App. 200, 462 S.E.2d 922 (1995); State v. Hanson, 532 N.W.2d 598 (Minn.App.1995). In the analysis of punitive elements of ALR, a court's choice of language from Halper is critical. The majority in Hansen and this case, among other jurisdictions, adopted the latter language and interpreted it to mean that a civil sanction must be only deterrent in nature, lacking any remedial aims, to qualify as punishment. Conversely, the former Halper language, which requires sanctions  solely to serve a remedial purpose, indicates that a civil sanction must be only remedial to avoid characterization as punishment. One interpretation shields from double jeopardy scrutiny an ALR sanction whose purposes include deterrence; the other interpretation focuses scrutiny on punishment where punishment appears, even if it appears in tandem with a remedial purpose. The selective reading of Halper endorsed by the majority might be easier to accept had the U.S. Supreme Court not resolved the question of which interpretation of Halper is correct in Austin v. U.S., 509 U.S. 602, 113 S.Ct. 2801, 125 L.Ed.2d 488 (1993). The Halper language requiring a solely ... remedial purpose appears twice in Austin, in response to the government's claim that because a statutory in rem civil forfeiture did not solely seek to deter, but also furthered a remedial purpose, it was not punishment. Austin, 509 U.S. at ___ and ___, 113 S.Ct. at 2806 and 2812. Significantly, the language from Halper that seems to require a solely deterrent purpose in order to trigger double jeopardy protection does not appear in Austin. More significantly, in quoting the language requiring a solely ... remedial purpose, the Austin Court deliberately emphasized the word solely, even further clarifying the Court's intent in Halper. Austin, 509 U.S. at ___, 113 S.Ct. at 2812. Beyond the context of ALR, courts have found no difficulty in reading Halper and Austin together, such that Austin clarifies Halper 's prohibition of punitive purposes in civil sanctions. See, U.S. v. Ursery, 59 F.3d 568 (6th Cir.1995) (finding civil forfeiture to qualify as punishment); Doe v. Poritz, 142 N.J. 1, 662 A.2d 367 (1995) (considering alleged deterrent impact of sex offender registration and community notification statutes); U.S. v. $405,089.23 U.S. Currency, 33 F.3d 1210 (9th Cir.1994) (determining whether civil forfeiture pursuant to money laundering statutes qualifies as punishment), op. amended 56 F.3d 41 (9th Cir.1995); State v. 1979 Cadillac DeVille, 632 So.2d 1221 (La.App. 1994) (finding civil forfeiture pursuant to drug conviction to qualify as punishment). Within the context of ALR, however, courts have refused to read Austin and Halper together. This court, among others, rejects Austin and its clarification of Halper on the grounds that Austin was decided under the Excessive Fines Clause of the Eighth Amendment, rather than under the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment. See, e.g., State v. Hansen, 249 Neb. 177, 542 N.W.2d 424 (1996); Tench, supra ; Hanson, supra . These courts fail to explain why Austin punishment analysis, which was decided under Halper punishment analysis, is incongruous with the application of Halper to ALR cases. The majority in Hansen dismissed Austin summarily, stating only that  Austin, which was ... decided upon the Eighth Amendment's `Excessive Fines' Clause [is] inapplicable to [this] case. 249 Neb. at 185, 542 N.W.2d at 430. Other courts have altogether ignored Austin in considering the reach of Halper. See, e.g., State v. Young, 3 Neb.App. 539, 530 N.W.2d 269 (1995); State v. Funke, 531 N.W.2d 124 (Iowa 1995); State v. Higa, 79 Hawai'i 1, 897 P.2d 928 (1995). Indeed, the State fails altogether to even mention Halper and Austin in its brief, much less explain why Austin is inapposite to our consideration. I will not assent to this selective reading of U.S. Supreme Court holdings. This court is bound not by a majority of other jurisdictions, but only by the precedent and the guidance of the U.S. Supreme Court. Yet, the majority has cavalierly dismissed the U.S. Supreme Court's holding in Austin that punishment under the Eighth Amendment and punishment under the Fifth Amendment are defined by the same constitutional ideals. In so doing, the majority disregards the facts that both Halper and Austin seek a definition of punishment; both Halper and Austin consider how much of a deterrent purpose is permissible before an ostensibly remedial sanction becomes punishment; and the Austin Court found that the correct inquiry under Halper is whether forfeiture serves in part to punish, and one need not exclude the possibility that forfeiture serves other purposes to reach that conclusion, (emphasis in original) 509 U.S. at ___ n. 12, 113 S.Ct. at 2810 n. 12. Because both the Fifth and Eighth Amendments limit the government's power to punish its citizens, what the Constitution prohibits as punishment under one amendment cannot logically be permissible under another. Austin and Halper define punishment as the threshold inquiries for the respective amendments each case concerns: we must first know what punishment is before we can assess whether a particular sanction is, by virtue of the Fifth or Eighth Amendment, imposed against the mandates of the Bill of Rights. The majority, however, makes the same artificial distinction of Austin from Halper that other state courts have made in order to circumvent Halper 's rule that deterrent-purpose sanctions equal punishment. The only fair reading of Austin counsels that Austin and Halper together resolve the punishment issue with respect to civil sanctions. To conclude otherwise effectively invalidates the Double Jeopardy Clause by allowing multiple punishments for the same conduct merely because the punishments also serve remedial purposes. U.S. v. Hudson, 14 F.3d 536 (10th Cir.1994). The governing language of Halper is the language emphasized in Austin, stating that `a civil sanction that cannot fairly be said solely to serve a remedial purpose, but rather can only be explained as also serving either retributive or deterrent purposes, is punishment....' Austin, 509 U.S. at ___, 113 S.Ct. at 2806. Even absent Austin, the ultimate result of Halper would demand the same conclusion: the Court remanded Halper's case to the trial court with instructions to ascertain how much of the civil penalty exceeded what was necessary to compensate the government, and to eliminate the excess as serving not a remedial purpose, but an improper punitive purpose. The Supreme Court's instruction in Halper should guide our determination of whether ALR in Nebraska serves as the first of an impermissible two punishments for one offense.