Court Opinion

ID: 9570221
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:21:11.842851+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:05:08.250584
License: Public Domain

Carley, Justice,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I agree that the prohibition against excessive fines of the Eighth Amendment does apply to in rem forfeitures effected pursuant to OCGA § 16-13-49. Austin v. United States, 509 U. S.-(113 SC 2801, 125 LE2d 488) (1993). Accordingly, I concur in the majority’s affirmative answer to the first certified question. I also concur in the majority’s responses to the fourth and fifth certified questions. I do not, however, agree that the proportionality test is the proper test to apply in determining constitutional excessiveness and must, therefore, respectfully dissent to the majority’s answers to the second and third certified questions.
In Austin, the Supreme Court specifically declined to establish a test for determining whether an in rem forfeiture is constitutionally *719excessive. Thus, there is no controlling authority on this issue and resolution is, therefore, dependent upon consideration of persuasive authority.
In Austin, 113 SC at 2813, Justice Scalia did address “the excessiveness inquiry for statutory in rem forfeitures” in his separate opinion wherein he concurred in part and concurred in the judgment. According to Justice Scalia:
Unlike monetary fines, statutory in rem forfeitures have traditionally been fixed, not by determining the appropriate value of the penalty in relation to the committed offense, but by determining what property has been “tainted” by unlawful use, to which issue the value of the property is irrelevant. Scales used to measure out unlawful drug sales, for example, are confiscable whether made of the purest gold or the basest metal. But an in rem forfeiture goes beyond the traditional limits that the Eighth Amendment permits if it applies to property that cannot properly be regarded as an instrumentality of the offense — the building, for example, in which an isolated drug sale happens to occur. Such a confiscation would be an excessive fine. The question is not how much the confiscated property is worth, but whether the confiscated property has a close enough relationship to the offense. . . . The relevant inquiry for an excessive forfeiture ... is the relationship of the property to the offense: Was it close enough to render the property, under traditional standards, “guilty” and hence forfeitable?
(Emphasis in original.) Austin v. United States, 113 SC at 2815 (II).
Subsequent to Austin, several states have determined that this “traditional standards” test is the proper one to apply to determine whether an in rem forfeiture is constitutionally excessive. See State v. Meister, 866 SW2d 485, 488 (II) (Mo. App. 1993); In re King Properties, 635 A2d 128, 133 (Pa. 1993). Under this interpretation of the scope of the protection afforded by the Eighth Amendment, the constitutional prohibition against “excessive fines” would not attach to an in rem forfeiture which otherwise is limited to property that was “tainted” by unlawful use or had “a close enough relationship to the offense.” See State of Ga. v. Wilbanks, 208 Ga. App. 422 (430 SE2d 668) (1993). Thus, an in rem forfeiture may constitute a “fine,” but it is not constitutionally “excessive” so long as the only property forfeited was “tainted” by unlawful use or had a “close enough relationship to the offense.”
Subsequent to Austin, some courts have adopted a “proportionality” test. In my opinion, however, the fundamental error in those *720cases which reject the “traditional standards” test and adopt the “proportionality” test recently has been recognized in United States v. Chandler,_F3d_(4th Cir. 1994):
Decided December 5, 1994.
Cory G. Begner, for appellants.
Lewis R. Slaton, District Attorney, Benjamin H. Oehlert III, Vivian D. Hoard, Assistant District Attorneys, for appellees.
[T]he . . . proportionality principle, if it does exist in the Eighth Amendment, derives from the Cruel and Unusual Punishment Clause and not the Excessive Fines Clause. While the principle of proportionality is traditionally associated with discussions of whether punishment is cruel and unusual, we believe that it is not applicable when considering the excessiveness of specifically identified property.
Thus, the “traditional standards” test, unlike the “proportionality” test, is firmly founded upon stare decisis. As is evidenced by its very nomenclature, the sole focus of an in rem forfeiture should be upon the objective “guilt” of the property itself, rather than upon such subjective “guidelines” as the majority acknowledges to be innumerable. The “proportionality” test adopted by the majority is, in fact, no test at all, but sets an uncharted course which the litigants and the courts now are required to navigate without any degree of certainty. Finding no compelling reason to deviate from established legal principles, I would adopt the “traditional standards” test as the proper test for determining the constitutional excessiveness of an in rem forfeiture effected pursuant to OCGA § 16-13-49. Therefore, I dissent.
I am authorized to state that Justice Thompson joins in this opinion.