Total Incorporation and Small Claims
I was thinking the other day about the consequences of incorporating the remainder of the Bill of Rights. Take the Seventh Amendment, which remains unincorporated. If that is applied to the states, then would that not mean that most of the small claims courts in this country would be illegal? The Seventh Amendment says (at least under the Court’s current view) that there is a civil jury trial right in cases involving more than $20. Small claims courts, of course, have no juries. And I think that most, if not all, states, require that claims under a certain amount must be heard there.