Montana v. Robert Murray Gibbons

In sentencing a defendant for his tenth conviction for driving under the influence of alcohol, the sentencing judge opted to impose a fine as part of that sentence. The applicable statute authorized fines between $5,000 and $10,000. Based on the relevant facts of the defendant’s latest conviction, the judge imposed the statutory minimum fine of $5,000. But the defendant, a person of limited means, claimed that the sentencing statute was facially unconstitutional. Finding that the statute requires a sentencing judge to impose a mandatory fine in every case without “first considering constitutionally required proportionality factors, such as the nature of the financial burden and the defendant’s ability to pay,” Pet.App.3a, ¶2, the Montana Supreme Court agreed and held that the statute facially violates the Eighth Amendment’s Excessive Fines Clause. The question presented is: Whether the Excessive Fines Clause requires the sentencing judge to consider a defendant’s personal financial circumstances and the nature of the burden that payment of the fine will impose before imposing a mandatory fine.