Washington • Tyson Timbs made a mistake, but not one as important as Indiana’s Supreme Court made in allowing to stand the punishment the state inflicted on him.
He was a drug addict — first with opioids prescribed for a work-related injury, then heroin — when his father died. He blew the $73,000 insurance payout on drugs and a $41,558 Land Rover, which he drove when selling $225 worth of drugs — 2 grams of heroin — to undercover police officers. Timbs’ vehicle was seized and kept, which amounted to a fine more than 184 times larger than the sum involved in his offense.