Page:Tyler v. Hennepin County.pdf/19

2 purpose, even a predominantly remedial purpose. So long as the law “cannot fairly be said solely to serve a remedial purpose,” the Excessive Fines Clause applies. Ibid. (emphasis added; internal quotation marks omitted). Nor, this Court has held, is it appropriate to label sanctions as “remedial” when (as here) they bear “ ‘no correlation to any damages sustained by society or to the cost of enforcing the law,’ ” and “any relationship between the Government’s actual costs and the amount of the sanction is merely coincidental.” Id., at 621–622, and n. 14.

Second, the District Court asserted that the Minnesota tax-forfeiture scheme cannot “be punitive because it actually confers a windfall on the delinquent taxpayer when the value of the property that is forfeited is less than the amount of taxes owed.” 505 F. Supp. 3d, at 896. That observation may be factually true, but it is legally irrelevant. Some prisoners better themselves behind bars; some addicts credit court-ordered rehabilitation with saving their lives. But punishment remains punishment all the same. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 61. Of course, no one thinks that an individual who profits from an economic penalty has a winning excessive-fines claim. But nor has this Court ever held that a scheme producing fines that punishes some individuals can escape constitutional scrutiny merely because it does not punish others.

Third, the District Court appears to have inferred that the Minnesota scheme is not “punitive” because it does not turn on the “culpability” of the individual property owner. 505 F. Supp. 3d, at 897. But while a focus on “culpability” can sometimes make a provision “look more like punishment,” this Court has never endorsed the converse view. Austin, 509 U. S., at 619. Even without emphasizing culpability, this Court has said a statutory scheme may still be punitive where it serves another “goal of punishment,” such as “[d]eterrence.” United States v. Bajakajian, 524 U. S. 321, 329 (1998). And the District Court expressly approved