Opinion ID: 836009
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Does the Sanction Serve a Punitive Purpose?

Text: Defendant argues that the PFZ exclusion ordinance serves a punitive purpose, because it seeks to incapacitate individuals from committing future crimes. Defendant also argues that the PFZ ordinance serves the punitive goal of retribution, because it goes far beyond what is necessary for any remedial purpose. Finally, defendant argues that the ordinance is intended to be a deterrent to further criminal conduct and is therefore punitive in that respect. Even if defendant were correct that exclusion serves as a deterrent, that fact is of little value to our analysis. Deterrence is a legitimate remedial purpose and its presence is perfectly compatible with a conclusion that a proceeding and sanction is civil. See Hudson, 522 U.S. at 105, 118 S.Ct. 488 (stating that deterrence may serve both civil and criminal goals). The same can be said of defendant's contention that exclusion under the ordinance serves to incapacitate persons from committing further crimes. Incapacitation, in that sense, is a remedial goal. Defendant does not suggest that that PFZ ordinance states a retributive purpose, and does not offer evidenceassuming such evidence would be pertinentthat the City Council had a hidden retributive agenda when it enacted the ordinance. As to defendant's contention that exclusion is retributive because it goes far beyond what is necessary for any remedial purpose, that argument properly belongs under the seventh factor in the federal test, i.e., whether the sanction is excessive in relation to the alternative purpose assigned, and we shall consider it under that topic. In summary, we do not find that the PFZ ordinance is punitive, as opposed to remedial.