The Eighth Amendment”s Excessive Fines Clause reads, “Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed.” The Fourth Circuit ruled yesterday in a case applying the Clause to a civil forfeiture.

Girma Afework attempted to deposit $79,650.00 into his PNC bank account. When told the bank would have to complete a government form prior to accepting any amount over $10,000, he limited his deposit to $9900 and in succeeding deposits he put the entire sum into his PNC and Bank of America accounts. Dividing a deposit into several deposits in order to avoid the $10,000 limit violates Federal law and is called “structuring.”

The government seized the money and moved to forfeit it. Afework sued to get the money back. He lost, the trial court finding sufficient evidence tat 1) he structured the transaction, 2) that he knew of the bank’s obligation to file reports with the government, and 3) that he structured the transaction with the intent to avoid the reporting requirement. But the trial court limited the government’s gain to $50,000 based upon the Guideline penalty for structuring.

Under the Eighth Amendment. fines, both civil and criminal must be proportional to the harm done. Generally the courts looks at possible penalties to determine whether or not the fines meets the proportionality requirement of the Eighth Amendment. The Fourth Circuit found that the maximum fine for structuring over $100,000 is $500,000. ¹ Therefore the appellate court remanded the case for resentencing.