The confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh shook just about everybody’s faith that the Court can operate without being overly politicized.

And it’s true, SCOTUS today is more politically charged than it likely has been in its entire history. Despite that, Justices Neil Gorsuch and Sonya Sotomayor – appointed by Trump and Obama, respectively – teamed up during oral arguments on a civil asset forfeiture case this week.

We saw this Gorsuch-Sotomayor alliance earlier this year in Carpenter v. United States, a case in which Gorsuch’s dissent seemed more like a concurrence arguing the majority opinion protecting data privacy that Sotomayor joined didn’t go far enough to protect individuals.

This week, the duo tag-teamed Indiana Solicitor General Thomas Fisher with a flurry of verbal barbs in the case Timbs v. Indiana.

When Fisher seemed to be arguing that the Eighth Amendment did not apply to the states, Gorsuch pressed him on the point. “Most of these incorporation cases took place in like the 1940’s. And here we are in 2018… still litigating the incorporation of the Bill of Rights,” Gorsuch said. “Really? Come on, General.”

Sotomayor later piled on regarding the absurd nature of modern civil asset forfeiture.

“If we look at these forfeitures occurring today, many of them seem grossly disproportionate to the crimes being charged,” she said.

Sotomayor also quoted Gorsuch’s predecessor, late Justice Antonin Scalia, saying, “For the Eighth Amendment to limit cash fines while permitting limitless [property confiscation] would make little sense.”

So, what is civil asset forfeiture and why is it so horrible it has two of the most ideologically disparate SCOTUS justices working together to chip away at it?

Civil asset forfeiture is a process through which the government can seize money and property that were either involved in a crime or were purchased with money gained illegally.

It’s a good idea in theory, particularly when it comes to organized crime. Find a gang’s stash house filled with drugs? Don’t just take the drugs and arrest the people. Take the house, their money, their cars and anything that seems like it was bought with drug money. The more property the government takes, the bigger the impact will be on the crime syndicate.

The issue, however, comes when asset forfeiture is used irresponsibly, in what it often called for-profit policing.

In most states defendants don’t even need to be charged with a crime to have their property taken. The government simply needs to prove with a preponderance of the evidence – a lower burden of proof than beyond reasonable doubt – that a piece of property was involved in a crime somehow. If that is the case, it can be taken from its owner, typically sold at auction and the profits go to the police department, District Attorney’s office or elsewhere in the government depending on where you are.

Philadelphia has been one of the most civil asset forfeiture-friendly cities in the country, and one particular case from 2014 shows just how insane the process can be.

22-year old Yianni Sourovelis was arrested with $40 worth of heroin and was suspected to be selling drugs out of the home he lived in with his parents. His parents did not have any idea.

About 45 days after the arrest, police returned to force the Sourovelis family out of their house, turn the power off and screw the doors to the house shut. Because the house was tied to illegal drugs, it was being taken by the Philadelphia District Attorney.

The burden of proof to get their house back, by Pennsylvania law, was on the family and they had to make their case not to a judge, but to a prosecutor from the DA’s office.

The Sourovelis family eventually got their house back on the condition they had to ban their son from the property. But many of these cases do not end up with even marginally happy endings. In one three year time period, $7 million in seized assets went directly into the salaries of the Philadelphia DA’s office and the Philadelphia police. The city seized about $64 million in cash and property over one ten year period.

Around the country, there are cases of people who are pulled over – but never charged with a crime – having large amounts of cash taken from them that they had legally, from casino winnings or to buy a car, for example.

In states with significant drug trade, cops will often profile minority drivers travelling south with the hope of grabbing drug money headed back out of the country rather than patrolling northbound lanes which typically carry drugs. Yeah, a big drug bust can give a department positive headlines, but with big cash seizures police can buy super important things like Dodge Vipers for their county’s DARE program, Hawaiian vacations or lots of booze and a margarita machine (yes, these are all real things that happened).

The Timbs v. Indiana case argued before SCOTUS this week involves Tyson Timbs, who was found guilty of selling heroin to fund his opioid addiction. In addition to a relatively light prison sentence and a $1,200 fine, Indiana also wants to take Timbs’ $42,000 Land Rover, which he used to transport the drugs.

Timbs’ side is arguing that taking the Land Rover, which was bought with life insurance money from Timbs’ father, is an excessive fine under the Eighth Amendment because the seizure is punitive and the car is worth much more than the maximum $10,000 fine for dealing heroin.

The Eighth Amendment has never been explicitly applied to the states under incorporation doctrine as most of Bill of Rights has been, but Gorsuch and Sotomayor, along with a good chunk of the other justices, seem inclined to do so. It also appears Timbs may win on the merits of the case and get his car back.

This wouldn’t end civil asset forfeiture, but it would strike a blow against predatory policing and prosecutorial practices and move the discussion on civil asset forfeiture and the lack of due process around the practice forward.

Neither civil asset forfeiture nor the rest of our criminal justice problems will be fixed overnight by SCOTUS or Congress. But in Gorsuch and Sotomayor, despite their different parties and different worldviews, we have two justices willing to stand up to the government when it steps on rights and fight for the most vulnerable minority there is – the individual.

There’s a lot of bad in D.C. nowadays, but this alliance between two of the youngest justices on the court is some good we’ll hopefully be able to witness for years to come.