A Constitutional Victory for Trump 

What is justice?

The New York Appellate Division ruled that the judgment – originally $354 million before interest ballooned it past $500 million – violated the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on excessive fines. This was an overdue reminder, writes editors in the WSJ, “that even a former president is entitled to the same constitutional protections as every American.”

In Spectator US, David Sypher, Jr., outlines what the US Constitution protects:

This judgment threatened to become less about enforcing the law, and more about making an example out of a political enemy.

Sitting Pretty

Donald Trump is not known to sit back quietly and let others enjoy the limelight. After winning an appeal, though, he can safely gloat that Attorney General Letitia James is now in the hot seat, while he, as President, can remain in the Catbird seat.

When a New YORK state judge last year ordered Donald Trump and his business associates to pay $450 million for civil fraud, AG James gloated that her case showed Donald Trump’s success was based on “the art of the steal.”

How can a state ask an unbelievable penalty of nearly half a billion dollars? Well not so fast. It cannot. A panel of a New York appeals court threw out that unbelievable penalty.

The fractured analyses became complicated. The lead opinion states: “The court’s disgorgement order, which directs that defendants pay nearly half a billion dollars to the State of New York, is an excessive fine that violates the Eighth Amendment of the United States Constitution.”

What Does the 8^th Protect?

The Spectator tells what the 8th does not permit. Prosecutors are not permitted to weaponize financial penalties into tools of annihilation.

The Eighth Amendment exists precisely to stop government officials from piling on punitive fines in order to crush those they dislike. If half a billion dollars can be extracted from a former president in the name of justice, what chance does a mid-sized developer, entrepreneur, or family-owned company have when it runs afoul of an ambitious attorney general?

One judge wanted to toss the AG’s case. The law that James wielded against Mr. Trump, according to Justice David Friedman, “has never been used in the way it is being used in this case—namely, to attack successful, private, commercial transactions, negotiated at arm’s length between highly sophisticated parties He also noted that “all profited.”

Judge Friedman added, “Plainly,” Ms. James’s … goal was “the derailment of President Trump’s political career and the destruction of his real estate business.”

Two judges found the lower court’s work so flawed they wanted to give Mr. Trump a new trial. As Justice John Higgitt sees it, the trial judge relied on an “erroneous interpretation” of legal precedents on the statute of limitations. That judge granted summary judgment, yet “failed to view the evidence in the light most favorable to defendants.” He “impermissibly made credibility determinations not just of the evidence but also the experts.”

The two appeals judges found that AG James “acted well within her lawful power” and “vindicated a public interest,” but the judges thought “the monetary penalty is unconstitutional.”

Justice Peter Moulton noted, “While harm certainly occurred, it was not the cataclysmic harm that can justify a nearly half-billion-dollar award.”

… A fine cannot be proportionate to the offense unless it is reasonably calculated to encompass only the actual proceeds that defendants realized from their fraud.”

The WSJ editor noted that two of the judges decided to join the order “vacating the disgorgement and sanctions.” Will they provide a resolution that can go to New York’s highest court?

Cautions the WSJ, “Don’t be surprised if (AG) James’ dubious case keeps losing.”

Purely Political 

Conservatives, The Spectator alerts, have long warned about the dangers of lawfare that uses legal tools to punish opponents who cannot be beaten at the ballot box.

Excessive fines are a subtle but devastating form of lawfare. 

The Framers of the US Constitution saw the danger of “ruinous penalties with impunity.” That is why, notes Sypher, “they wrote into the Bill of Rights a clear prohibition on excessive fines.”

They had seen how European monarchies used monetary penalties not to enforce justice but to confiscate wealth and crush dissent. To ignore that history is to forget why America was founded in the first place.

Mr. Sypher continues,

New York Attorney General Letitia James campaigned on a promise to “get Trump.” Her case succeeded before a trial judge who eagerly embraced the role of scourge.

But when the appeals court reviewed the judgment, it found the punishment was grossly out of proportion – even while upholding aspects of liability and oversight of Trump’s businesses.

US Protection is Universal

Half a billion dollars is not a fine, argues Mr. Sypher.

It is political theater masquerading as justice.