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Wesley Hottot

Senior Attorney

Memberships

The Washington Bar

The Texas Bar

Wesley Hottot joined the Institute for Justice in 2008. He is the co-director of IJ’s National Initiative to End Civil Forfeiture.

In 2019, he won the landmark case of Timbs v. Indiana in the U.S. Supreme Court , which established that state and local authorities must comply with the Excessive Fines Clause of the Eighth Amendment when they attempt to forfeit property.

In 2015, Wesley won another landmark victory in the Texas Supreme Court, when the court struck down the state’s eyebrow threading regulations and announced a new test for reviewing economic regulations under the Texas Constitution.  Recently, he has won a series of civil forfeiture cases, including the successful defense of a San Diego family who had their life savings seized because the father operated a legal medical-marijuana business.  His work has been discussed in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Oregonian, Tennessean, Seattle Times, Austin American-Statesman, Dallas Morning News and other print, radio, and television outlets.

Wesley received his law degree from the University of Washington, where he completed a judicial externship with Justice Richard Sanders of the Washington Supreme Court and a two-year clerkship with the Institute’s Washington office. He was an Echols Scholar at the University of Virginia and graduated with distinction and Phi Beta Kappa.

Wesley's Cases

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Wesley's Research & Reports

Civil Forfeiture | Private Property

Policing for Profit: Second Edition

Policing for Profit, 2nd Edition Published in 2015, this is an older edition of IJ’s landmark Policing for Profit report. You can download the report here, but please see the third and current edition for the most up-to-date…

Houston, We Have a Problem

Economic Liberty

Houston, We Have a Problem

This report focuses on the areas Houston needs to improve in order to remain an opportunity city for all.

Bureaucratic Barbed Wire

Economic Liberty

Bureaucratic Barbed Wire

Texas has a unique heritage of inspiring entrepreneurs. But the state has been restricting the economic liberty long enjoyed by its citizens.

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Wesley's Amicus Briefs

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Wesley's News, Articles & Publications

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Wesley's Hearings

Texas Eyebrow Threading Oral Argument

  • Texas Supreme Court
  • February 27, 2014

IJ joined with eyebrow threading salon owner Ash Patel, along with several other threading salon owners and individual threaders, to challenge the Texas Department of Licensing & Regulation’s requirement that threaders become fully licensed cosmetologists to practice their trade, which involves using a single strand of cotton thread to remove unwanted hair. Read More

Timbs v. Indiana Oral Argument

  • U.S. Supreme Court
  • November 28, 2018

After Tyson Timbs got caught selling four grams of heroin to undercover officers, he pleaded guilty to drug dealing. He served one year on house arrest, paid $1,200 in court fees, and, most importantly, got clean. But the state of Indiana cared a lot more about his car—an expensive (and legally purchased) Land Rover, which he was driving the day of his arrest. The state filed a lawsuit to civilly forfeit the vehicle, arguing that it had been used to convey Tyson a few blocks to one of his meetings with the undercover officers. Read More

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