Punitive damages obtained in a civil case are not criminal in anyway. They are not brought by a prosecutor. The defendant does not have a right to a court appointed attorney. A sentence is never given. And, most importantly, incarceration is never imposed.

The Court in State Farm focused on the need for some proportionality between compensatory damages and the amount of punitives, with the Court suggesting that, except where actual damages are very low, or in very unusual circumstances, a ratio beyond 9:1 would be excessive. If a legislature did that, we could argue abut the numbers, but not the approach, but when did the Supreme Court receive legislative powers? There are numbers in the Constitution when bright lines are useful – ages for voting or holding certain office, the amount in controversy for which jury trials must be maintained, and the terms for federal officeholders – yet there is nothing about magic numbers for punitive damages, let alone that the Supreme Court has the right to decide them.