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State v. Boyd8/23/2000
ssive in the constitutional sense, due regard must be had to the object designed to be accomplished, to the importance and magnitude of the public interest sought to be protected, to the circumstances and the nature of the act for which it is imposed, and in some instances, to the ability of accused to pay. In order to justify the court in interfering and setting aside a judgment for a fine authorized by statute, the fine imposed must be so excessive and unusual, and so disproportionate to the offense committed, as to shock public sentiment and violate the judgment of reasonable people concerning what is right and proper under the circumstances. Hammad, 212 Wis. 2d at 355-56 (quoting Seraphine, 266 Wis. at 121-22).
. The thrust of the State's argument on appeal is that the circuit court incorrectly interpreted the multi-factor Seraphine standard when it found that the amount of Boyd's forfeiture was excessive. However, since the Hammad court declared that the Seraphine standard was the test for this issue, the United States Supreme Court has addressed it and resolved the question of which test should be applied to evaluate if a fine is excessive. That determination was made in United States v. Bajakajian, 524 U.S. 314 (1998).
. In Bajakajian, Bajakajian willfully attempted to remove $357,144 in currency from this country without complying with the requirement in 31 U.S.C. § 5316(a)(1)(A) (1994) to report the removal of sums in excess of $10,000. See Bajakajian, 524 U.S. at 323. The government seized the entire amount and instituted forfeiture proceedings pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 982(a)(1) (1994), which authorized the seizure of any property involved in a § 5316 offense. See Bajakajian, 524 U.S. at 324. The district court ordered a reduced forfeiture of $15,000, refusing to seize the entire sum on Eighth Amendment grounds. See id. The government appealed. See id.
. To weigh the excessiveness of the forfeiture in the Bajakajian appeal, the Supreme Court adopted the standard commonly referred to as "the proportionality test." See id. at 329. It held, "The touchstone of the constitutional inquiry under the Excessive Fines Clause is the principle of proportionality: The amount of the forfeiture must bear some relationship to the gravity of the offense it is designed to punish." Id. The precise nature of this relationship was described as follows: " punitive forfeiture violates the Excessive Fines Clause if it is grossly disproportionate to the gravity of the defendant's offense." Id.
. Applying the proportionality test, the Bajakajian Court held that forfeiting the entire $357,144 violated the Excessive Fines Clause. See id. at 331. In reaching this conclusion, it first considered the gravity of the offense. See id. The Court emphasized Bajakajian's culpability rather than the crime's severity, noting that his crime was "solely a reporting offense." See id. Because Bajakajian did not commit any other illegal activities, the Court stated that he did not fit into the "class of persons for whom the statute was principally designed: He is not a money launderer, a drug trafficker, or a tax evader." Id. at 332. The Court also considered that the maximum fine that Bajakajian could have received for his crime was $5,000. See id. Additionally, the Court emphasized that Bajakajian's conduct caused minimal harm and "affected only one party, the Government." See id.
. Considering these factors, the Court determined that full forfeiture would be disproportionate to the offense. See id. at 333. It remarked that full forfeiture would be "larger than the $5,000 fine imposed by the District Court by many orders of magnitude, and it bears no articulable correlation to any in
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