## Facts

- Montana enacted the Dangerous Drug Tax Act, imposing a tax on the possession and storage of illegal drugs, measured by 10% of assessed market value or specified per-unit amounts, whichever was greater.
- The Act required payment and filing only after arrest and directed collection only after criminal fines and forfeitures were satisfied.
- The Kurth family operated a farm and also cultivated and sold marijuana beginning in 1986.
- After the Act took effect, officers raided the farm, arrested the Kurths, and confiscated and later destroyed marijuana and related materials.
- The Kurths pleaded guilty to state drug offenses and were criminally punished.
- After the criminal cases, the Department of Revenue assessed the drug tax on the seized marijuana in a separate proceeding; the assessment could reach multiples of market value (reported as up to eight times).
- In bankruptcy, the Kurths objected to the State’s claim, arguing the tax was an unconstitutional second punishment for the same conduct.

## Issues

1. Whether Montana’s drug tax, imposed in a separate proceeding after criminal prosecution for the same drug conduct, constituted “punishment” barred by the Double Jeopardy Clause.
2. Whether features of the tax scheme (triggered by arrest, imposed after criminal sanctions, assessed on confiscated contraband, and set at extraordinary rates) rendered it punitive rather than a civil revenue measure.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court affirmed that the tax, as applied to the Kurths after their criminal convictions, violated the Double Jeopardy Clause’s prohibition on successive punishments for the same offense.
- The Court held that legislative labeling of a measure as “civil” or a “tax” does not prevent double jeopardy review when the scheme functions as a penalty.
- The Court found the Act departed from normal revenue laws because liability arose only upon arrest, the tax targeted contraband already confiscated and destroyed, collection followed criminal fines and forfeitures, and the rates were exceptionally high.
- Because the tax operated as an additional sanction for the same underlying drug conduct in a subsequent proceeding, it amounted to a second punishment.

## Legal Principles

- A civil label does not control the Double Jeopardy analysis; a measure styled as a tax may be treated as punishment when its structure and effect are penal.
- A sanction imposed after criminal punishment for the same offense violates the Double Jeopardy Clause if it is nonremedial and functions as a second punishment.
- Indicators that a purported tax is punitive include: liability conditioned on criminal conduct and arrest, assessment on confiscated contraband, sequencing after criminal fines or forfeitures, and rates or amounts so extreme that they are not plausibly tied to ordinary revenue or remedial purposes.

## Conclusion

Montana’s Dangerous Drug Tax, imposed only after arrest and after criminal penalties and calculated at extraordinary rates on confiscated contraband, functioned as punishment; applying it to defendants already criminally punished for the same drug conduct violated the Double Jeopardy Clause.


Dep’t of Revenue of Mont. v. Kurth Ranch, 511 U.S. 767 (1994)