Excessive Fines Clause

Ferris J. Alexander, Sr., had been in the adult entertainment business for more than thirty years. He sold pornographic magazines and sexual paraphernalia, showed sexually explicit movies, and sold and rented videotapes of a similar nature. He received shipments of these materials at a warehouse in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where they were wrapped in plastic, priced, and boxed. He then sold his products through some thirteen retail stores in several different Minnesota cities, generating millions of dollars in annual revenues. In 1989, federal authorities filed a forty-one count indictment against Alexander and others. The indictment alleged operation of a racketeering enterprise in violation of RICO. It charged thirty-four obscenity counts and three RICO counts, with the racketeering counts being predicated on the obscenity charges. The indictment also charged numerous counts of tax evasion and related offenses. Following a four-month jury trial in the United States District Court for the District of Minnesota, Alexander was convicted of seventeen substantive obscenity offenses. These included twelve counts of transporting obscene material in interstate commerce and five counts of engaging in the business of selling obscene material. He was also convicted of three RICO offenses predicated on the obscenity convictions. The jury determined that four magazines and three videotapes were obscene under the Miller standards. Alexander was sentenced to a total of six years in prison and fined one hundred thousand dollars. In addition, the District Court reconvened the same jury and conducted a forfeiture proceeding pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 1963. The Government sought forfeiture of the businesses and real estate representing Alexander's interest in the racketeering enterprise, property affording him influence over that enterprise, and assets and proceeds obtained from his racketeering offenses. The jury found that Alexander had an interest in ten pieces of commercial real estate and thirty-one current or former businesses. The District Court ordered him to forfeit his wholesale and retail businesses, all the assets of those businesses including more than thirteen thousand items of inventory, and almost nine million dollars in moneys acquired through racketeering activity. The Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit affirmed Alexander's convictions and the forfeiture order. The Supreme Court granted certiorari to consider whether the forfeiture order violated the First or Eighth Amendments.

Evangelisto Ramos was charged with a serious criminal offense and tried in a Louisiana state court. At trial, the jury deliberated and returned a verdict of guilty by a vote of ten to two. Under Louisiana law at the time, non-unanimous verdicts were permitted in criminal cases, and only Louisiana and Oregon allowed such verdicts among the states. Ramos's conviction was upheld under the authority of Apodaca v. Oregon, in which the Supreme Court had held that the Sixth Amendment requires unanimous verdicts in federal criminal trials but permits non-unanimous verdicts in state trials. Subsequently, Louisiana voters approved a constitutional amendment requiring unanimous jury verdicts for criminal convictions. Ramos then challenged his conviction on direct review, arguing that the Sixth Amendment, as incorporated against the states, mandates unanimous verdicts in state criminal trials for serious offenses. The Louisiana Supreme Court rejected Ramos's argument, relying on the precedent established in Apodaca. The case reached the United States Supreme Court, which granted certiorari to consider whether Apodaca should be overruled. On April 20, 2020, the Supreme Court reversed the judgment of the Louisiana Supreme Court and remanded the case for further proceedings.

In November 1999, fourteen-year-old Kuntrell Jackson and two other boys decided to rob a video store in Arkansas. En route, Jackson learned that one of the boys carried a sawed-off shotgun. Jackson initially stayed outside the store but later entered while the robbery was underway. When the clerk, Laurie Troup, refused to hand over money and threatened to call the police, one of Jackson's co-defendants shot and killed her. The three boys fled without taking any money. Arkansas prosecutors exercised their discretion to charge Jackson as an adult with capital felony murder and aggravated robbery. A jury convicted him of both offenses. The trial court imposed the statutorily mandated sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. Jackson did not challenge the sentence on direct appeal, and the Arkansas Supreme Court affirmed the convictions. In 2003, fourteen-year-old Evan Miller and a friend, Colby Smith, spent an evening drinking alcohol and smoking marijuana with Miller's neighbor, Cole Cannon, at Cannon's trailer in Alabama. After Cannon passed out, Miller stole his wallet. Cannon awoke and grabbed Miller by the throat. Smith struck Cannon with a baseball bat, and Miller then repeatedly hit Cannon with the bat. The boys set two fires in the trailer before leaving. Cannon died from his injuries and smoke inhalation. Miller had previously been in and out of foster care, regularly used drugs and alcohol, and had attempted suicide four times. Alabama law initially required that Miller be charged as a juvenile, but the district attorney sought and obtained removal of the case to adult court. A jury convicted Miller of murder in the course of arson. The trial court imposed the statutorily mandated sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. The Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the conviction and sentence. Following this Court's decisions in Roper v. Simmons and Graham v. Florida, Jackson filed a state habeas petition arguing that his mandatory life-without-parole sentence violated the Eighth Amendment. The circuit court dismissed the petition, and the Arkansas Supreme Court affirmed. Miller's direct appeal was likewise unsuccessful. The Supreme Court granted certiorari in both cases.

In 1964, 1966, and 1969 Jerry Helm was convicted in South Dakota of third-degree burglary. In 1972 he was convicted of obtaining money under false pretenses, in 1973 of grand larceny, and in 1975 of third-offense driving while intoxicated. All six offenses were nonviolent and alcohol contributed to each. In 1979 Helm was charged with uttering a no-account check for $100. He told the trial court he had been drinking in Sioux Falls, ended up in Rapid City with more money than he started with, and did not remember the incident, then pleaded guilty. Because he had three prior felony convictions in addition to the principal felony, the South Dakota Circuit Court sentenced him to life imprisonment without possibility of parole under the recidivist statute. The South Dakota Supreme Court affirmed the sentence in a 3-2 decision. After Helm served two years, he asked the Governor to commute the sentence so he could become eligible for parole after serving three-fourths of a fixed term; the Governor denied the request in May 1981. Helm filed a habeas corpus petition in the United States District Court for the District of South Dakota, which denied relief. The United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit reversed. The Supreme Court granted certiorari to consider the Eighth Amendment question.