By Mark W. Fowler

“Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.” —Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

There was a time when decisions from the New York courts were highly esteemed, appearing frequently in law school texts. One of the judges who wrote some of those opinions, Learned Hand, must be rolling in his grave. Judge Hand would be aghast at the monstrosity written by New York Judge Arthur Engoron in the matter of New York v. Donald Trump. In a unique feat of judicial obtuseness, Engoron managed not to see either the forest, the trees, or the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

The saga begins with New York Attorney General Letitia James running a campaign pledging to “get Trump” without really specifying what Trump should be gotten for. She accused him of fraud and corruption and called him an illegitimate president. (Irrational, undemocratic election deniers can only be Republicans. Ask Hillary Clinton or Stacey Abrams.) The personal denigration of a potential defendant is inappropriate for prosecutors, as is calling them a carnival barker and a conman. Subtlety is not James’s forte.

Trump is alleged to have inflated the value of his properties in seeking loans and other business matters while doing business in New York. Inflating property values is endemic in every real estate transaction everywhere. The buyer seeks to maximize his price while the seller seeks to minimize it. For tax appraisals, on the other hand, most people object to any valuation that is increased over the last one, but no matter. When Trump does it, it is a major threat to … somebody, and at least Letitia James’s sense of equilibrium.

No creditor in these matters relies on the loan applicant’s valuation. They do their own. No one who dealt with Donald Trump in these matters lost so much as a penny. Indeed, during the recently completed trial, creditors said they enjoyed doing business with Trump and would do so again. No one was defrauded. No one was cheated. No one was harmed. You cannot have fraud without a victim. Notwithstanding these niceties, James sued him, claiming he violated New York law by overestimating the value of his properties. Engoron, no slouch in recognizing skullduggery, fined Trump over $400 million. A peculiarity in New York law requires the appellant to put up a bond in the amount of the judgment, plus 10%, before being allowed to appeal, effectively imposing an enormous burden on the aggrieved appellant’s due process right to appeal.

The Eighth Amendment explicitly forbids excessive fines and has been held applicable to state government action. Legal malevolence has been around for awhile, and the Eighth Amendment is taken almost word for word from the Magna Carta.

And so, the question is: What is the logical, objective relationship between a case of overestimating the value of property in one or more loan applications, in which no one was harmed, and a fine of $400 million?

Answer: Nothing. There is no relationship. Engoron just plucked it out of the air. But the real purpose is to destroy President Trump, seize his assets, and run him out of business. This case, Alvin Bragg’s spurious case involving misreporting on election forms (a federal case the government refused to bring), the stinking mess in Georgia, and E. Jean Carrols’s $80 million judgment for an assault bearing a strange resemblance to an actual novel are all part of the same sense of malevolence. Persecute Trump, slander him, demolish him economically, and take any measure to prevent him regaining the presidency. Most of the American public, Trump supporters or not, recognize this for the abuse it is.

Prediction: The United States Supreme Court will severely criticize the judgment and reverse it. Thereafter, the name Engoron will be synonymous with Eighth Amendment overreach.

Mark W. Fowler is a board-certified physician and former attorney. He can be reached at [email protected].