Check out the latest (and final) episode of the Institute for Justice’s “Bound by Oath” podcast. IJ’s John K. Ross was kind enough to ask us to be a guest on the show titled “Excessive Fines,” and our friend and colleague Bob McNamara and I sat down in Nashville to record our sound bytes. 

The series (not simply a podcast, but more like an audio documentary) is about the Fourteenth Amendment, and covers (inter alia) how and why the rights in the Bill of Rights have, over time, been applied by the Supreme Court to state and local governments under the Due Process “selective incorporation” doctrine.

So why was a takings guy a guest on a show about the Excessive Fines Clause of the Eighth Amendment?  Because last year in Timbs v. Indiana, the Supreme Court held, in a civil forfeiture case, that the Excessive Fines Clause applied to state and local governments. That was one of the last rights in the Bill of Rights which had not been incorporated against the states. And, as we takings types know, the first right to be incorporated was the Fifth Amendment’s Just Compensation Clause in  Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad v. City of Chicago, 166 U.S. 226 (1897). With the circle nearly complete, we suppose that Bound by Oath’s producers thought it would be good to track the history of incorporation, starting with one of our favorite takings cases.  

We think the entire nine-episode series is worth your time. I think I have listened to Episode 8 at least three times now. Imagine an audio-only Ken Burns. Very compelling. And you will learn stuff.