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crime and punishment judiciary

Nor Excessive Fines Imposed

“Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.”

Although less controversial than other constitutional amendments, the much-​neglected Eighth Amendment provides important protection from the government. Yet this amendment has been violated, sometimes grotesquely, and not only in the context of criminal sanctions.

The question before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, decided July 22, was whether local governments must comply with the prohibition against “excessive fines” when issuing parking tickets.

“This right to be free from excessive governmental fines is not a relic,” the court ruled. “The government cannot overstep its authority and impose fines on its citizens without paying heed to the limits posed by the Eighth Amendment.” Providing the basis for the present decision was a 2019 Supreme Court decision affirming that the Excessive Fines Clause does indeed apply to state and local governments.

The driver who is the focus of the class-​action suit did not win his specific case. With respect to whether the fine he contested was in fact “excessive,” the court said no, it was not. But it sent the question of whether the late penalties were excessive to a lower court for further review.

The principle is crucial here, and the court clearly affirmed the rule that local governments may not impose “excessive fines.”

The many drivers in many municipalities who have been victimized by ridiculous use of red-​light cameras to fill government coffers are among those who should take heart.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.


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crime and punishment

Your Local Vortex of Despair

I don’t know about you, but through the years I’ve received my share of traffic tickets and parking citations. Minor stuff overall, seventy dollars here, a hundred bucks there, a couple hundred smackeroos if caught in the wrong speed trap.

Sometimes the cost made me say ouch. But like most folks I just pay the tickets. And try to slow down.

But if you are poor, struggling, climbing the ladder from one of the bottom rungs?

Different story. And a speed trap set up by your local police or the state troopers, then, has a much different punch to it.

Could traffic tickets be instruments of tyranny?

Well, the $150 some of us can pay with a mere wince another simply cannot pay, or can only pay at the expense of a child’s supper, or replacing a balding tire on the car, or … worse.

And those who cannot pay, despairingly, often shirk the “duties” they cannot perform. Like coming to court to pay the fines they can’t pay. And then they get arrested. And then serve time.

A few more “and thens” and their lives are wrecked. Along with the lives of their children.

Radley Balko tells several such stories in his recent article, “How municipalities in St. Louis, Mo., profit from poverty.” He explains the very human costs of speed traps and other penny ante scofflaw “services” the police inflict all around Ferguson, the scene of last month’s protests and violence.

Balko quotes one observer, who describes the whole system as a trap for the poor, sucking them into a “vortex of despair.”

Stop punishing the working poor with excessive fines. Vanquish the vortex!

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.