Cite as: 509 U. S. 602 (1993)
Opinion of Scalia, J.
in the first instance. See Yee v. Escondido, 503 U. S. 519, 538 (1992).15
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the case is remanded to that court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Justice Scalia, concurring in part and concurring in the judgment.
We recently stated that, at the time the Eighth Amendment was drafted, the term "fine" was "understood to mean a payment to a sovereign as punishment for some offense." Browning-Ferris Industries of Vt., Inc. v. Kelco Disposal, Inc., 492 U. S. 257, 265 (1989). It seems to me that the Court's opinion obscures this clear statement, and needlessly attempts to derive from our sparse case law on the subject of in rem forfeiture the questionable proposition that the owner of property taken pursuant to such forfeiture is always blameworthy. I write separately to explain why I consider this forfeiture a fine, and to point out that the excessiveness inquiry for statutory in rem forfeitures is different from the usual excessiveness inquiry.
I
Whether any sort of forfeiture of property may be covered by the Eighth Amendment is not a difficult question. "Forfeiture" and "fine" each appeared as one of many definitions of the other in various 18th-century dictionaries. See ante, at 614, n. 7. "Payment," the word we used in Browning-15 Justice Scalia suggests that the sole measure of an in rem forfeiture's excessiveness is the relationship between the forfeited property and the offense. See post, at 627-628. We do not rule out the possibility that the connection between the property and the offense may be relevant, but our decision today in no way limits the Court of Appeals from considering other factors in determining whether the forfeiture of Austin's property was excessive.
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