GOOD: Supreme Court strikes blow against states that raise revenue by hefty fines, forfeitures.

The Supreme Court ruled unanimously Wednesday that state governments cannot impose excessive court fees, fines and forfeitures as a means of raising money.

The decision, which united the court’s conservatives and liberals, makes clear that the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against “excessive fines” applies to the states.

Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, just back in court after lung cancer surgery, wrote the majority opinion and announced it from the bench.

“The protection against excessive fines guards against abuses of government’s punitive or criminal law-enforcement authority,” Ginsburg wrote. Quoting in part from the court’s 2010 ruling that Second Amendment gun rights apply to the states, she said, “This safeguard, we hold, is ‘fundamental to our scheme of ordered liberty.'” . . .

The case came to the Supreme Court from Indiana’s highest court, which ruled that the excessive fines clause doesn’t apply to the states. It represents the latest effort to determine what portions of the Bill of Rights apply to the states.

Most rights, such as the Second Amendment’s right to bear arms for self-defense, have been extended. But the right to a unanimous jury verdict under the Sixth Amendment has not.

This is good. Interestingly, Ginsburg’s opinion cites McDonald v. Chicago, the gun-rights case applying the Second Amendment to the states, four times. Also interestingly, Gorsuch says he agrees with Thomas on incorporation via privileges and immunities, not due process. The full opinion is here.