Incorporation and Government Structure

Inspired by this week's SCOTUS oral argument in Timbs v. Indiana, my colleague (and partner in crime) Andy Hessick and one of our talented UNC students, Elizabeth Fisher, wrote the following about incorporation.  I tend to think that they are wrong--especially about the jury trial right--but I'm having a hard time articulating precisely why.  They are looking for input (and I'm looking for help with counterarguments for the dinner table) so I'm posting it here for folks to weigh in with comments.

Earlier this week the Court heard argument in Timbs v. Indiana, which asks whether the Fourteenth Amendment incorporates the Excessive Fines Clause against the states.  Questions for oral argument put the smart money on the Court saying it is incorporated.  If that’s right, then all of the first 8 amendments will be incorporated except for three provisions: the Third Amendment, the right to a jury in civil proceedings, and the right to a grand jury. The reason the Third Amendment is not incorporated is that the Court has never had the opportunity to consider the issue. Third Amendment claims are rare. But the non-incorporation of the other two provisions is harder to explain.

The extent to which the Fourteenth Amendment incorporates rights against the states has been a longstanding question. The text of the Fourteenth Amendment is vague, and the history surrounding its ratification is ambiguous.  Over the years, justices have floated various theories of incorporation.  Some have pressed for total incorporation; others argued for a fundamental-fairness test.  Today, the prevailing doctrine is the so-called “selective incorporation” test under which a right is incorporated if is fundamental or deeply rooted in our nation’s history. This test does not derive from either the text or the history of the Amendment.  Instead, it rests on the two principles of protecting individual rights while trying to avoid unduly constraining the states.

Under this selective incorporation test, incorporating the Excessive Fines Clause seems like a no-brainer. Prohibiting excessive fines is just as fundamental or deeply rooted as many of the other rights the Court has incorporated.  But it is hard to see why the grand jury and civil jury clauses are not incorporated under this test.  They are not obviously less fundamental or deeply rooted in our nation’s history than other guarantees in the Bill of Rights.  The inclusion of those rights in the Bill of Rights alone strongly suggests their importance. But the Court has repeatedly said that those rights are not incorporated, including in the 1970s after the Court started its modern wave of incorporation.

Questions from some of the justices in the Timbs argument suggest that they are prepared to incorporate all of the guarantees in the first 8 amendments based on a total incorporation theory.  But there are reasons not to incorporate the jury rights.  One reason—a reason we are developing in a new paper—is that incorporating these rights would more significantly interfere with the states’ sovereignty than the incorporation of other rights. Most rights impose substantive restrictions. For example, the First Amendment limits the government’s ability to regulate speech.  Other rights require the government to follow particular procedures.  For example, the Due Process Clause requires the government to afford process before depriving individuals of life, liberty, or property.  The grand jury and civil jury clauses do much more.  They require the government to adopt particular structures.  For example, the Seventh Amendment obliges the government to provide juries in common law cases over $20.

Requiring states to adopt government structures significantly intrudes on the states’ prerogative to arrange their own governments. Under the Constitution, states are sovereign except to the extent that the Constitution provides otherwise. An essential feature of sovereignty is the power to arrange government and distribute power among governing bodies.  The Framers deliberately protected that power of the states.  The only limitation they imposed is that states must have republican forms of government, but they left the states vast discretion in structuring their republican governments.  Not incorporating the grand jury and civil jury clauses avoids dictating to the states how to arrange their judiciaries.

Of course, the obvious objection to this structural rights theory is that the Court has incorporated the right to a jury in criminal proceedings.  But it may be that the Court took a wrong turn in incorporating that right.  Certainly, the incorporation of that right has resulted in doctrinal anomalies.  For instance, despite the Court’s insistence that incorporated rights apply in the same way to the state and federal governments, the right to a criminal jury does not apply the same way to the states and the federal government. Among other things, although juries must be unanimous in federal criminal cases, they do not need to be unanimous in state proceedings.  This inconsistency suggests at least some recognition that incorporating the right interferes with the states’ prerogative to operate its judiciary.

The idea is still in nascent form.  We still have much work to do on it, and we’d love any thoughts on it.