Cite as: 518 U. S. 267 (1996)
Opinion of the Court
and is not an evolving concept . . . , a long course of adjudication in this Court carries impressive authority").
In the cases that we currently review, the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit recognized as much, concluding that after 89 Firearms, "the law was clear that civil forfeitures did not constitute 'punishment' for double jeopardy purposes." 33 F. 3d, at 1218. Nevertheless, that court read three of our decisions to have "abandoned" 89 Firearms and the oft-affirmed rule of Various Items. According to the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, through our decisions in United States v. Halper, 490 U. S. 435 (1989), Austin v. United States, 509 U. S. 602 (1993), and Department of Revenue of Mont. v. Kurth Ranch, 511 U. S. 767 (1994), we "changed [our] collective mind," and "adopted a new test for determining whether a nominally civil sanction constitutes 'punishment' for double jeopardy purposes." 33 F. 3d, at 1218-1219. The Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit shared the view of the Ninth Circuit, though it did not directly rely upon Kurth Ranch. We turn now to consider whether Halper, Austin, and Kurth Ranch accomplished the radical jurisprudential shift perceived by the Courts of Appeals.
In Halper, we considered "whether and under what circumstances a civil penalty may constitute 'punishment' for the purposes of double jeopardy analysis." Halper, supra, at 436. Based upon his submission of 65 inflated Medicare claims, each of which overcharged the Government by $9, Halper was criminally convicted of 65 counts of violating the false-claims statute, 18 U. S. C. § 287 (1982 ed.), as well as of 16 counts of mail fraud, and was sentenced to two years in prison and fined $5,000. Following that criminal conviction, the Government successfully brought a civil action against Halper under 31 U. S. C. § 3729 (1982 ed. and Supp. II). The District Court hearing the civil action determined that Halper was liable to the Government for over $130,000 under § 3729, which then provided for liability in the amount of
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