Opinion ID: 76790
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Civil and Criminal Sanctions for Similar Conduct

Text: 36 The third factor, which is accorded less weight in the reasonableness analysis than the first two guideposts, involves a comparison between the punitive damages award and the `civil penalties authorized or imposed in comparable cases.' Campbell, 538 U.S. at 428, 123 S.Ct. 1513. 37 The district court did not compare the jury's award to any civil judgments for violations of RICO where unlawful gambling has served as the predicate act. It stated that [n]o civil cases involving punitive damages, analyzed under the Gore framework could be located for comparison. Dist. Ct. Order at . Given this lacuna, the trial court relied entirely on comparisons between the jury award and criminal sanctions for violating RICO. In Campbell, the Supreme Court stated that while it is true that [t]he existence of a criminal penalty does have bearing on the seriousness with which a State views the wrongful action, when comparisons to criminal penalties are used to determine the dollar amount of the award, however, the criminal penalty has less utility. 538 U.S. at 428, 123 S.Ct. 1513. The Campbell Court noted that [g]reat care must be taken to avoid use of the civil process to assess criminal penalties that can be imposed only after the heightened protections of a criminal trial have been observed. Id. Therefore, we are careful to avoid placing too much reliance on the size of criminal penalties in assessing the reasonableness of the jury's award.