After scoring a landslide victory in a civil fraud lawsuit against former President Donald Trump on Monday, legal experts weighed in on whether former President Donald Trump can appeal a $454 million judgment that violates his constitutional rights. I’m considering what to do.
The 45th president and a potential Republican candidate for the 2024 election must pay $454 million bail by Monday, as ordered by Judge Arthur Engoron or Attorney General Letitia James. He faced asset seizure.
But hours before the deadline, the New York Court of Appeals reduced bail by 60% and ordered President Trump to pay $175 million while the case is on appeal.
Legal experts told Fox News Digital that one of the legal avenues President Trump and his lawyers can and should pursue is the U.S. Constitution’s 500 million dollar ban on “excessive fines.” The aim is to prove that the amendments have been violated.
More than half of Trump’s $454 million judgment bond thrown out by appeals court ruling
Republican presidential candidate and former President Donald Trump gestures to supporters during an election night watch party at the State Fairgrounds in Columbia, South Carolina, on February 24, 2024. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)
Mr. James sued Mr. Trump under the New York State Administrative Law, which provides broad investigative powers and is intended to protect against consumer fraud.
She accused him and his company of inflating the value of real estate to get better interest rates on loans from banks. In this unusual case, the state could not prove a clear victim that President Trump harmed and suffered significant losses.
In February, Manhattan Supreme Court Judge Engoron sided with Mr. Trump, calling for so-called “disgorgement,” a legal remedy that requires those who have obtained illegal profits to return the profits they earned by engaging in illegal activities. ) was imposed.
Former Assistant U.S. Attorney John Malcolm said, “Despite the fact that there were no identifiable victims and the other parties to the transaction were sophisticated investors who had conducted their own due diligence, the “It’s unheard of for someone to demand repayment of more than $10,000.” he said in an interview with Fox News Digital in Atlanta.
Remarkably, bank executives who worked with Trump told the court they were satisfied with their dealings with Trump and even sought more business from him, viewing him as a “customer whale.” I testified.
Engoron calculated how much profit the banks could have made on the loans to Trump if they hadn’t gone up in value over several years.
President Trump vows to fight New York lawsuit ‘all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court’ as $454 million deadline approaches
Judge Arthur Engoron presides over former President Donald Trump’s civil fraud trial in New York State Supreme Court in New York City on November 13, 2023. ((Photo by: Erin Schaff Pool/Getty Images))
Disgorgement is not legally or technically a fine. But legal experts say the ruling could violate the Eighth Amendment.
The proposed amendments provide that “excessive bail shall not be required, no excessive fines shall be imposed, and no cruel and unusual punishment shall be imposed.”
“Whether disgorgement is considered a fine is a complex issue,” Malcolm said. “However, if it were to be considered a fine, it would certainly be an ‘excessive fine’ in violation of the Eighth Amendment.”
Jim Trusty, President Trump’s former legal adviser and former federal prosecutor, said the claim of violation of the Eighth Amendment is “not unreasonable, because disgorgement is thinly veiled as a punitive fine.” said.
Punitive damages are evaluated by the court strictly as punishment for the crime, in addition to assessing the damages owed to the victim.
“No one has lost anything in this case. In fact, the banks have testified in court that they are insisting that they resume doing business with Mr. Trump. Even if this is Mr. Trump’s only argument, it is his strongest argument. “But it’s a valid argument because the sentence has a punitive flavor,” he added.
“The question ultimately comes down to whether the sentence reflects ill-gotten gains recovered by the court or something more punitive, such as a fine,” Trusty added.
Mark Brnovich, a former Arizona prosecutor and former attorney general, told Fox News Digital that James’ case is “more like a political vendetta” than it meets proper standards or the application of justice.
“Whether you’re suing a private company, whether it’s a criminal case or a civil case, if you’re the government, you can take away people’s livelihoods, their lives, their liberty, their property,” Brnovich said.
“That comes with a lot of responsibility, and that means it’s not just throwing crap at the wall and seeing what sticks. “You can’t measure success by the amount of the fine,” he said. “You can go against companies and individuals. At the end of the day, success is measured by whether justice is done.”
The Eighth Amendment has historically applied only to criminal cases, not civil cases.
But Brnovich, who filed and settled a consumer fraud lawsuit against the infamous Elizabeth Holmes and her company Theranos, said the Eighth Amendment “creates a situation where fines are inherently arbitrary and punitive. “I think it can also be applied to
“And I think what Trump’s lawyers are doing is sustaining that argument on appeal.”
New York Court of Appeals allows Trumps to continue business, rejects request for delayed payments
New York Attorney General Letitia James (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)
Brnovich, who has argued three cases before the Supreme Court, said the high court “certainly is willing to step in at some point, saying civil monetary penalties are inherently over the line.” He pointed out recent trends over the past 10 years. , in violation of the Eighth Amendment.
In 2019, the Supreme Court decided for the first time that the Excess Fines Clause can be used to challenge state court decisions.
In the majority opinion, the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote, “Protection against exorbitant fines has always served as a shield for good reason throughout Anglo-American history. It undermines constitutional freedoms.”
“Excessive fines could be used, for example, to retaliate against political opponents or to chill speech,” he said.
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Most recently, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of a 94-year-old grandmother from Minnesota. The lawsuit alleged that the state violated her constitutional rights by seizing her condo for unpaid taxes and then selling her property and keeping all her assets. Her sale proceeds were far more than what she actually owed.
In a concurring opinion, Justice Neil Gorsuch, joined by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, noted how lower courts should consider Eighth Amendment challenges.
“Even without emphasizing culpability, this court has stated that a statutory scheme may still be punitive if it serves another “purpose of punishment,” such as:[d]Forever,” he wrote.
“An economic penalty imposed to deter willful non-compliance with a law is a fine by whatever name it is called. And the Constitution has something to say about it. It shouldn’t be,” he said.
