Opinion of the Court
ing Austin v. United States, 509 U. S. 602, 609–610 (1993)). The Fourteenth Amendment, we hold, incorporates this protection.
The Excessive Fines Clause traces its venerable lineage back to at least 1215, when Magna Carta guaranteed that “[a] Free-man shall not be amerced for a small fault, but after the manner of the fault; and for a great fault after the greatness thereof, saving to him his contenement….” §20, 9 Hen. III, ch. 14, in 1 Eng. Stat. at Large 5 (1225).[1] As relevant here, Magna Carta required that economic sanctions “be proportioned to the wrong” and “not be so large as to deprive [an offender] of his livelihood.” 'Browning-Ferris, 492 U. S., at 271. See also 4 W. Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England 372 (1769) (“[N]o man shall have a larger amercement imposed upon him, than his circumstances or personal estate will bear….”). But cf. Bajakajian, 524 U. S., at 340, n. 15 (taking no position on the question whether a person’s income and wealth are relevant considerations in judging the excessiveness of a fine).
Despite Magna Carta, imposition of excessive fines persisted. The 17th century Stuart kings, in particular, were criticized for using large fines to raise revenue, harass their political foes, and indefinitely detain those unable to pay. E. g., The Grand Remonstrance ¶¶17, 34 (1641), in The Constitutional Documents of the Puritan Revolution 1625–1660, pp. 210, 212 (S. Gardiner ed., 3d ed. rev. 1906); Browning-Ferris, 492 U. S., at 267. When James II was overthrown in the Glorious Revolution, the
- ↑ “Amercements were payments to the Crown, and were required of individuals who were ‘in the King’s mercy,’ because of some act offensive to the Crown.” Browning-Ferris, 492 U. S., at 269. “[T]hough fines and amercements had distinct historical antecedents, they served fundamentally similar purposes–and, by the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the terms were often used interchangeably.” Brief for Eighth Amendment Scholars as Amici Curiae 12.
