OCTOBER TERM, 1997
Syllabus
certiorari to the united states court of appeals for the ninth circuit
No. 96-1487. Argued November 4, 1997—Decided June 22, 1998
After customs inspectors found respondent and his family preparing to board an international flight carrying $357,144, he was charged with, inter alia, attempting to leave the United States without reporting, as required by 31 U. S. C. § 5316(a)(1)(A), that he was transporting more than $10,000 in currency. The Government also sought forfeiture of the $357,144 under 18 U. S. C. § 982(a)(1), which provides that a person convicted of willfully violating § 5316 shall forfeit "any property . . . involved in such an offense." Respondent pleaded guilty to the failure to report and elected to have a bench trial on the forfeiture. The District Court found, among other things, that the entire $357,144 was subject to forfeiture because it was "involved in" the offense, that the funds were not connected to any other crime, and that respondent was transporting the money to repay a lawful debt. Concluding that full forfeiture would be grossly disproportional to the offense in question and would therefore violate the Excessive Fines Clause of the Eighth Amendment, the court ordered forfeiture of $15,000, in addition to three years' probation and the maximum fine of $5,000 under the Sentencing Guidelines. The Ninth Circuit affirmed, holding that a forfeiture must fulfill two conditions to satisfy the Clause: The property forfeited must be an "instrumentality" of the crime committed, and the property's value must be proportional to its owner's culpability. The court determined that respondent's currency was not an "instrumentality" of the crime of failure to report, which involves the withholding of information rather than the possession or transportation of money; that, therefore, § 982(a)(1) could never satisfy the Clause in a currency forfeiture case; that it was unnecessary to apply the "proportionality" prong of the test; and that the Clause did not permit forfeiture of any of the unreported currency, but that the court lacked jurisdiction to set the $15,000 forfeiture aside because respondent had not cross-appealed to challenge it.
Held: Full forfeiture of respondent's $357,144 would violate the Excessive
Fines Clause. Pp. 327-344.
(a) The forfeiture at issue is a "fine" within the meaning of the Clause, which provides that "excessive fines [shall not be] imposed." The Clause limits the Government's power to extract payments, whether in cash or in kind, as punishment for some offense. Austin v. United
321
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