312
Opinion of Stevens, J.
pressly held, and Austin and Kurth Ranch reaffirmed, that "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" for purposes of the Double Jeopardy Clause. 490 U. S., at 448. " 'Retribution and deterrence are not legitimate nonpunitive governmental objectives.'" Ibid. (emphasis added) (quoting Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U. S. 520, 539, n. 20 (1979)). To say otherwise is to renounce Halper's central holding. If deterrence is a legitimate remedial rationale "distinct from" any punitive purpose, ante, at 292, then the $130,000 fine in Halper could not be condemned as excessive because it plainly served a powerful deterrent function. It was a premise of the Court's analysis in that case that deterrence could not justify a penal sanction. As in Bennis v. Michigan, where the Court first announced this new view of deterrence, it simply ignores Halper without explanation or comment. See 516 U. S., at 468-469 (Stevens, J., dissenting).
For good measure, the Court also rejects two considerations that persuaded the majority in Austin to find 21 U. S. C. § 881(a)(7) a punitive statute. The Court first asserts that the statute contains no scienter requirement and property may be forfeited summarily if no one files claim to it. Ante, at 291-292 (citing 19 U. S. C. § 1609). Property that is not claimed, however, is considered abandoned; it proves nothing that the Government is able to forfeit property that no one owns. Any time the Government seeks to forfeit claimed property, it must prove that the claimant is culpable, for the statute contains an express "innocent owner" exception. Today the Court finds the structure of the statute irrelevant, but Austin said that the exemption for innocent owners "makes [the statute] look more like punishment." 509 U. S., at 619. In United States v. United States Coin & Currency, 401 U. S. 715 (1971), the Court
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