On Wednesday, the Supreme Court unanimously decided the case of Timbs v. Indiana. The decision was an auspicious one, and it was auspicious for two reasons. The first was that the decision was written by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg so, yes, she's back, sports fans. The second is that it was a harpoon sunk deeply into the scam that is the civil forfeiture procedure.

Tyson Timbs is an Indiana man who was busted in his SUV and who later pleaded guilty to drug-related offenses. The state went after his ride, estimated to cost $42,000. A state court came down against the forfeiture because the vehicle was worth far more than the fine that Timbs was assessed, which the state court determined violated the Eighth Amendment's protection against excessive bail. The state took the case to Washington, arguing that the amendment's prohibition only extended to federal actions.

Yeah, said RBG, the 14th Amendment says maybe not so much.

The Eighth Amendment’s Excessive Fines Clause is an incorporated protection applicable to the States under the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause...Protection against excessive fines has been a constant shield throughout Anglo-American history for good reason: Such fines undermine other liberties [...] The historical and logical case for concluding that the Fourteenth Amendment incorporates the Excessive Fines Clause is indeed overwhelming.

The misuse of the forfeiture statutes has become epidemic among local and state police departments. Too often, it leads to baroque corruption, and it also functions as a backdoor way to fund basic services in municipalities that don't have the guts to ask their citizens for tax increases. It's gotten so bad out in the country that both sides of the ideological ditch have come to oppose it, and it's central to the appeal of bipartisan criminal-justice reform. Now, those folks have a powerful legal weapon.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg, back in action Getty Images

More from RBG:

Excessive fines can be used, for example, to retaliate against or chill the speech of political enemies. . . . Even absent a political motive, fines may be employed in a measure out of accord with the penal goals of retribution and deterrence.

And, as a measure of the cross-ideological appeal of the ruling, Justice Clarence Thomas's concurrence went right to the heart of the scam. Civil forfeiture, he wrote, has become...

widespread and highly profitable... This system — where police can seize property with limited judicial oversight and retain it for their own use — has led to egregious and well-chronicled abuses.

Sorry, Mayor Goober. You're out of the car-theft business. You're going to have to ask the residents of Bugtussle to tax themselves if you want to buy that rocket-launcher.

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Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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