Thomas, J., concurring in judgement
Lords as “exorbitant and excessive.” 14 Journals of the House of Lords 210 (May 14, 1689). Several members of the committees that would draft the Declaration of Rights–which included the prohibition on excessive fines that was enacted into the English Bill of Rights of 1689–had themselves “suffered heavy fines.” Schwoerer 91–92. And in 1684, judges in the case of John Hampden held that Magna Carta did not limit “fines for great offences” against the King, and imposed a £40,000 fine. Trial of Hampden, 9 State Trials 1054, 1125 (K. B. 1684); 1 J. Stephen, A History of the Criminal Law of England 490 (1883).
“Freedom from excessive fines” was considered “indisputably an ancient right of the subject,” and the Declaration of Rights’ indictment against James II “charged that during his reign judges had imposed excessive fines, thereby subverting the laws and liberties of the kingdom.” Schwoerer 90. Article 10 of the Declaration declared “[t]hat excessive Bayle ought not to be required nor excessive fynes imposed nor cruel and unusuall Punishments inflicted.” Id., at 297.
Shortly after the English Bill of Rights was enacted, Parliament addressed several excessive fines imposed before the Glorious Revolution. For example, the House of Lords overturned a £30,000 fine against the Earl of Devonshire as “excessive and exorbitant, against Magna Charta, the common right of the subject, and against the law of the land.” Case of Earl of Devonshire, 11 State Trials 1354, 1372 (K. B. 1687). Although the House of Lords refused to reverse the judgments against Titus Oates, a minority argued that his punishments were “contrary to Law and ancient Practice” and violated the prohibition on “excessive Fines.” Harmelin v. Michigan, 501 U. S. 957, 971 (1991); Trial of Oates, 10 State Trials 1080, 1325 (K. B. 1685). The House of Commons passed a bill to overturn Oates’s conviction, and eventually, after a
