306
Opinion of Stevens, J.
the jurisprudence of both the Excessive Fines Clause and the Double Jeopardy Clause. Halper laid down a general rule for applying the Double Jeopardy Clause to civil proceedings:
"[A] civil sanction that cannot fairly be said solely to serve a remedial purpose, but rather can only be explained as also serving either retributive or deterrent purposes, is punishment, as we have come to understand the term. . . . We therefore hold that under the Double Jeopardy Clause a defendant who already has been punished in a criminal prosecution may not be subjected to an additional civil sanction to the extent that the second sanction may not fairly be characterized as remedial, but only as a deterrent or retribution." 490 U. S., at 448-449.
In the past seven years, we have applied that same rule to three types of sanctions: civil penalties, civil forfeitures, and taxes.
The first was the subject of Halper itself. The defendant had been convicted for submitting 65 false claims for reimbursement (seeking $12 for each, when the actual services rendered entitled him to only $3) to a Medicare provider, and sentenced to imprisonment for two years and a $5,000 fine. The Government then brought a civil action against him for the same offenses. The penalty for violating the civil false-claims statute consisted of double the Government's damages plus court costs and a fixed fine of $2,000 per false claim. See id., at 438. Accordingly, the Government sought a penalty of $130,000, although the defendant's fraud had caused an actual loss of only $585. Applying the definition of "punishment" given above, the Court first held that the fixed $2,000 fine served a remedial purpose because it was designed to compensate the Government "roughly" for the costs of law enforcement and investigation. Id., at 445. Despite finding that the fine was not by nature punitive, the
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