On the issue of due process, the Eighth Amendment states, “Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.” Now contrast that with a new Justice Department ruling: “Bail practices that incarcerate indigent individuals before trial solely because of their inability to pay for their release violate the Fourteenth Amendment.” For background, NBC News says, “The filing came in the case of Maurice Walker of Calhoun, Georgia. He was kept in jail for six nights after police arrested him for the misdemeanor offense of being a pedestrian under the influence. He was told he could not get out of jail unless he paid the fixed bail amount of $160.”

As stipulated in the Eighth Amendment, excessive bail is prohibited, and $160 is certainly well within what can be considered reasonable. On the other hand, the case can be made that forcing a callously drunk and destitute individual who is being charged with a misdemeanor to spend a week in confinement seems like a “cruel and unusual punishment.” Which gets us to the crux of the issue: The DOJ may have a legitimate argument here. The problem though, as is so often the case, is that Justice has issued a blanket ruling to resolve a relatively isolated problem. That in and of itself creates a bigger problem. As Jazz Shaw points out, “[E]liminating bail entirely for people who claim poverty, even for petty crimes, sounds like more trouble, not less.” Like so many other blanket rulings, this makes the system — and the Constitution — even more ripe for abuse.