The Supreme Court unanimously slapped some badly needed handcuffs on state and local governments Wednesday by ruling that they’re subject to the US Constitution’s ban…
The Supreme Court unanimously slapped some badly needed handcuffs on state and local governments Wednesday by ruling that they’re subject to the US Constitution’s ban on “excessive fines.”
The justices found that the ban must apply to states because it’s “fundamental to our scheme of ordered liberty” and “deeply rooted” in US law, history and tradition.
Indeed, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg noted that prohibitions on excess fines go back to the days of the Magna Carta in 1215. And for good reason: They can be wrongly used “to retaliate against or chill the speech of political enemies” or as “a source of revenue” out of line with “the penal goals of retribution and deterrence.
