Another Kind Of Civil Forfeiture As State Keeps Fines After Conviction Is Overturned

In yet another example of a state ripping off its citizens when they interact with the law, Colorado currently requires people who have been convicted and required to pay fines and/or restitution to file a separate civil suit to recover those fines and restitution if they are subsequently cleared on appeal. Incredibly, the state’s position is that any fine or restitution that was a result of a legal conviction is the state’s money, regardless of whether that conviction is subsequently overturned. Currently, Colorado law requires anyone in that situation to file a separate, new civil suit that requires a new filing fee and a HIGHER burden of proof, showing not just that the original conviction was simply overturned but that they were, in fact, innocent, in order to be reimbursed by the state.

Thankfully, this process is being challenged and is currently being heard by the US Supreme Court. The Court poked some obvious holes in the state’s theory that the money was theirs. Justice Roberts posed the question of whether the state could impose an arbitrary monetary penalty on anyone convicted of a crime and then keep the money if the conviction was overturned. Robert Yarger, Colorado’s Solicitor General, replied that the state could, saying, “The assumption is that the deprivation of both the liberty and the property at the time of conviction is lawful, and that the property passes into public funds.” Justice Breyer pointed out that the state could fine a corporation after a conviction but the corporation would have no incentive to appeal, even if they felt the conviction was unjust, because the state was never going to return the money anyway. Mr. Yarger did not really have an answer for that, probably because the state has no intention of not reimbursing corporations. It is only their individual citizens they want to rip off.

It’s not saying much, but what Colorado is doing here is one step above civil forfeiture where citizens’ money and property can be taken without even a criminal charge being filed. But it is just another example of our current legal system’s abuse of the Constitutional right embodied in the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment which declares “nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law”. These days, our Constitutional rights seem to mean less and less as we transform to an oligarchic autocracy. The Supreme Court will probably rule on this case sometime this spring.