Judge orders return of seized Land Rover that led to SCOTUS civil forfeiture case. (The Indiana Lawyer)

Fourteen months after the Supreme Court's landmark ruling on civil forfeitures, the plaintiff got his Land Rover back this week.

Grant Superior Judge Jeffrey D. Todd issued the order on Monday. He was right five years ago. The Indiana Court of Appeals was right, too.

Only an erroneous ruling from the Indiana Supreme Court placed the issue before the Supreme Court, whose landmark ruling remanded the case, which then went back to the Grant Superior Court.

Civil forfeitures were long used by law enforcement to take money where there was no crime, or where there was no correlation between the crime and the taking.

The Eighth Amendment, now more fully incorporated into the Fourteenth Amendment and applied to the states, will protect us from willful acts of corrupt greedy Sheriffs, like St. Johns County Sheriff DAVID SHOAR, who legally changed his name from "HOAR" in 1994

Another victory by the Institute for Justice, the Libertarian litigation group in Arlington, Virginia. Three cheers!

From The Indiana Lawyer:

Tyson Timbs of Marion holds a photo of his Land Rover that was seized in a civil forfeiture excessive fines case that ultimately made its way to the US Supreme Court. A Grant County judge Monday ordered Timbs' vehicle returned to him more than seven years after it was seized, (IJ file photo)

Judge orders return of seized Land Rover that led to SCOTUS civil forfeiture case

April 28, 2020 | Olivia Covington

Editor’s note: This story has been updated with comments from Indiana Attorney General Curtis Hill.

After seven years, two appearances before the Indiana Supreme Court and a trip to the United States Supreme Court, a Marion man fighting for the return of his seized vehicle has won his battle, with a trial court judge ordering the “immediate” return of his SUV. But a pending appeal means the case is not over yet.

Grant Superior Judge Jeffrey D. Todd ordered Monday in State, et al. v. Tyson Timbs, 27D01-1308-MI-92, that Timbs’ Land Rover be released – roughly seven years after the vehicle was first seized by law enforcement. Timbs was arrested and convicted in 2013 for drug and theft felonies, and the state sought the forfeiture of the $41,000 vehicle.

“After taking into account the harshness of the punishment, the severity of the offense and his culpability, the Court finds, by a significant margin, that Timbs has overcome his burden to establish that the harshness of the forfeiture of his 2013 Land Rover is grossly disproportional to the gravity of the underlying dealing offense and his culpability for the Land Rover’s corresponding criminal use,” Todd wrote Monday in his findings of fact, conclusions of law and judgment.

The trial court ruling came after a hearing in February, which was held on remand from the Indiana Supreme Court. The October remand required the trial court to evaluate the proportionality of the forfeiture of the Land Rover using a new test developed by the state justices.

That proportionality test came on remand from the United States Supreme Court, which in February 2019 reversed the Indiana Supreme Court’s original 2017 ruling in Timbs’ case by holding that the Eighth Amendment’s Excessive Fines Clause had been incorporated to the states.

Timbs took his case to SCOTUS in November 2018 after the Indiana Supreme Court ruled in 2017 that the Excessive Fines Clause had not been incorporated to the states. That decision overturned the original rulings of Todd and the Indiana Court of Appeals, which both had determined that forfeiture of the Rover was disproportionate to Timbs’ crimes.

In making the same determination Monday – nearly five years after he first denied the state’s forfeiture petition in 2015 – Todd wrote at length about the importance of having a vehicle in Indiana, a state where public transportation is sparse.

Since his arrest, Timbs has held jobs in Pendleton, Huntington, Gas City and Peru, Todd wrote. He now works in McCordsville, which is about an hour from his Marion home.

“Cars are crucial to maintaining employment in most parts of Indiana and employment is crucial to reducing recidivism,” the judge wrote. “According to a publication on the Indiana Department of Corrections’ (sic) website, unemployment is one of the top two predictors of recidivism in Indiana.

“Automobiles are also vital to offenders like Timbs who are suffering from substance abuse disorders,” Todd continued. “Routinely, these offenders are ordered to participate in drug and alcohol treatment, and a car is usually utilized to attend addiction services and treatment programs located in and around Grant County.”

Timbs’ heroin addiction developed from a hydrocodone prescription he received in 2007. Though he did not purchase the Rover with drug money — he instead used proceeds from his father’s life insurance policy — he did use the vehicle to drive to and from his supplier in Richmond.

He also drove the vehicle to one of two controlled buys set up by an undercover officer in 2013. Likewise, he was driving the Rover to a third would-be controlled by in 2013 when he was pulled over and arrested.

In addition to the seizure of his vehicle, Timbs received one year of home detention, five years of probation and more than $1,200 in fees and costs. He has not had access to his car since its initial seizure, relying instead on his aunt for transportation help.