Opinion ID: 2368807
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Constitutional Scheme

Text: Apart from the asserted support in the history of the development and adoption of the excessive bail clause, appellant argues that the apparent anomaly of the excessive bail clause can only be explained by construing it to grant a right to bail. The core of this argument is that the excessive bail clause, insofar as it operates as a limit on congressional power, is a futility if Congress is prohibited from requiring excessively high bail but is free to deny bail altogether by making some or all crimes nonbailable. The only explanation for prohibiting excessively high bail but allowing the denial of all bail would be a concern for economic equality between the rich and the poor, which the historical evidence clearly negates. [26] To avoid rendering the excessive bail clause surplusage, the argument runs, it must be broadly interpreted to grant a right to bail. See Foote, supra note 9, at 987. This argument presumes, however, that the excessive bail clause was intended primarily to limit the legislative power of Congress rather than to limit the discretion of the judiciary in setting individual bail. The historical origins of the excessive bail clause, as well as its narrow language, indicate that its primary purpose is to limit the judiciary. The major reason advanced for construing the clause as directed to Congress (and thus as a broader limitation on its powers) is the constitutional context of the Bill of Rights itself. The Bill of Rights, it is argued, had as its central concern ... protection against abuse by Congress. Id. at 969, 988; Tribe, supra note 6, at 400. See also Ingraham v. Wright, 430 U.S. 651, 664-66, 97 S.Ct. 1401, 1408-10, 51 L.Ed.2d 711 (1977) (history of adoption of Eighth Amendment indicates that cruel and unusual punishment clause was intended to restrict Congress as well as the judiciary). A cursory examination of other provisions contained in the Bill of Rights, however, reveals that the conduct of the judicial branch was an important, if not the chief, concern. The indictment, double jeopardy, and due process clauses of the Fifth Amendment, and the Sixth Amendment's criminal trial rights, clearly were intended to curtail the powers of the courts as well as those of Congress in legislating for the courts. A second related argument is that while an unlimited legislative power to define the boundaries of the citizen's rights, such as the right to bail, is consistent with the English theory of civil liberties in which Parliament is the ultimate authority, it is generally inconsistent with a constitutional form of government like ours. Foote, supra note 9, at 969, 988; see Tribe, supra note 6, at 400. This reasoning requires, however, an antecedent finding that the right to bail is a fundamental right that the framers of the Bill of Rights meant to protect against congressional encroachment, because plainly not all asserted rights are constitutionally protected. While the history of the development of bail reveals that it is an important right, and bail in noncapital cases has traditionally been a federal statutory right, neither the historical evidence nor contemporary fundamental values implicit in the criminal justice system requires recognition of the right to bail as a basic human right, Foote, supra note 9, at 969, which must then be construed to be of constitutional dimensions.