The Fifth Amendment

A grand jury is a group of 16 to 23 ordinary citizens convened to review the government's evidence before a federal criminal trial may begin. They do not determine guilt, only whether there is enough evidence, called probable cause, to formally charge someone with a serious crime. Their proceedings are secret, and they operate largely without judicial oversight. If they find sufficient evidence, they issue an indictment. If not, they issue a no-bill and the suspect goes free without charges.

Under the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, at least 12 grand jurors must agree before an indictment can be returned. A federal grand jury usually sits for up to 18 months, meeting periodically to hear many different cases, and a court may extend its term.

The proceedings are one-sided by design. A prosecutor presents the evidence, no judge is in the room, and the suspect's lawyer is not allowed to attend. Grand juries may consider hearsay, and in United States v. Williams (1992) the Supreme Court held that prosecutors are not required to present evidence favorable to the suspect.

As a result, federal grand juries have historically almost always indicted. The Bureau of Justice Statistics reported that in fiscal year 2010, federal prosecutors pursued roughly 162,000 cases and grand juries declined to indict in just 11. For how ordinary citizens are summoned to serve, see jury duty and the courts.

The grand jury traces to English common law as far back as the 12th century. Its original purpose was to protect citizens from overzealous prosecution by the Crown. The Framers included it to ensure that no American could be put through the ordeal of a federal criminal trial unless a group of fellow citizens, not just a prosecutor, had determined the evidence warranted it. As the Supreme Court put it in United States v. Cotton (2002), the grand jury serves as a check on prosecutorial power.

An early forerunner was the Assize of Clarendon of 1166, under King Henry II, which required groups of local men to report suspected crimes to royal judges. Over the following centuries, the body evolved from a tool of the Crown into a shield against it.

Two famous refusals shaped its reputation. In 1681, a London grand jury refused to indict the Earl of Shaftesbury for treason despite pressure from King Charles II, and in the 1730s New York grand juries refused to indict printer John Peter Zenger for seditious libel, forcing the governor to prosecute him by other means. The free press page tells Zenger's story.

Modern critics argue the institution has lost that independence. In 1985, New York's chief judge Sol Wachtler was quoted as saying a prosecutor could get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich, a line long used to describe how rarely grand juries have refused a prosecutor's request, though federal grand juries in Washington, D.C., declined to indict in several widely reported cases in 2025. See how the jury system works today.

No. The grand jury clause is the only part of the Fifth Amendment that has never been incorporated against the states through the 14th Amendment. This means states are free to charge people by other means, such as a prosecutor's information, a formal charging document filed without a grand jury. Every state has some form of grand jury, but many rarely use one to charge; Connecticut and Pennsylvania no longer use indicting grand juries at all, keeping them only for investigations. States are not constitutionally required to use them.

The rule dates to Hurtado v. California (1884), in which the Supreme Court held that California could charge Joseph Hurtado with murder by a prosecutor's information rather than a grand jury indictment. Most other rights in the Bill of Rights were later applied to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment, but this one never was.

States now split roughly in half. About half require a grand jury indictment for at least some serious felonies, while the rest let prosecutors file charges directly, usually after a preliminary hearing at which a judge decides whether there is enough evidence to proceed.

State grand juries drew national attention in police-shooting cases. In November 2014, a St. Louis County grand jury declined to indict the officer who shot Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and the county prosecutor took the unusual step of releasing the transcripts. County prosecutors and their role are covered on the local and county government page.

Members of the armed forces and militia in active service during war or public danger are not entitled to a grand jury indictment. Military justice operates under a separate system governed by the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ). Courts-martial, not grand juries, determine whether military personnel face trial.

Congress enacted the Uniform Code of Military Justice in 1950. In place of a grand jury, serious military cases go through an Article 32 preliminary hearing, where an officer reviews the evidence and recommends whether the case should proceed to a general court-martial.

The exception does not reach civilians. In Ex parte Milligan (1866), the Supreme Court held that an Indiana civilian could not be tried by a military commission during the Civil War while the regular civilian courts were open and operating.

The system continues to change. In Solorio v. United States (1987), the Court held that military courts may try service members for any offense, not only service-connected ones, and reforms that took effect in December 2023 moved decisions on prosecuting serious offenses such as sexual assault from commanders to independent military prosecutors. The armed forces page covers military structure.

The Double Jeopardy Clause protects against three things: a second prosecution after acquittal for the same offense, a second prosecution after conviction for the same offense, and multiple punishments for the same offense. Once a jury has found you not guilty, the government cannot try you again even if new evidence emerges later. An acquittal is an absolute bar to re-prosecution.

The protection applied only to federal prosecutions until Benton v. Maryland (1969), when the Supreme Court applied it to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment.

Whether two charges are the same offense is decided under the Blockburger test, from a 1932 case: two crimes are different if each requires proof of a fact the other does not. That is why a single act can sometimes support charges under several separate statutes.

An acquittal is final even when the judge made a legal error, as the Court held in Fong Foo v. United States (1962). The clause bars only criminal retrials, not civil suits: after O.J. Simpson was acquitted of murder in 1995, a civil jury found him liable for wrongful death in 1997. Learn how juries work on the jury duty and courts page.

Jeopardy does not attach the moment you are charged. In a jury trial, jeopardy attaches when the jury is sworn in. In a bench trial, it attaches when the first witness is sworn. In juvenile proceedings, it attaches when the court first hears evidence. If a case is dismissed before these thresholds, the government can refile charges without violating double jeopardy.

In Crist v. Bretz (1978), the Supreme Court held that the rule attaching jeopardy when the jury is sworn is part of the constitutional guarantee and binds the states. Before that point, a dismissal generally does not stop the government from refiling charges, as the Court held in Serfass v. United States (1975).

Juveniles are protected too. In Breed v. Jones (1975), the Court held that once a juvenile court hears evidence against a young person, the state cannot then transfer the case and try that person again as an adult for the same conduct.

Retrials after appeals follow their own rules. A defendant who wins a new trial because of a legal error at the first trial can be tried again, but under Burks v. United States (1978), a reversal because the evidence was insufficient to convict counts as an acquittal and bars retrial. Appeals are handled in the federal courts.

The most important exception to double jeopardy is the dual sovereignty doctrine. Because the federal government and each state are separate sovereigns, they can each prosecute you for the same underlying act without violating double jeopardy. This is how, after the 1992 acquittal of four Los Angeles police officers in state court for the 1991 beating of Rodney King, the federal government could still prosecute them for federal civil rights violations. Two different sovereigns, two separate offenses.

The Supreme Court reaffirmed the doctrine in Gamble v. United States (2019), holding 7-2 that Alabama and the federal government could both prosecute Terance Gamble for the same gun possession. Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Neil Gorsuch dissented from opposite ends of the Court's ideological spectrum.

In the Rodney King case, the federal trial in 1993 ended with convictions of Sergeant Stacey Koon and Officer Laurence Powell, who were each sentenced to 30 months in prison; the other two officers were acquitted again. The civil rights page covers the federal civil rights laws involved.

The doctrine turns on where a government's power comes from. Indian tribes are separate sovereigns, but in Puerto Rico v. Sanchez Valle (2016) the Court held that Puerto Rico is not, because its authority to prosecute ultimately derives from Congress. In Denezpi v. United States (2022), the Court ruled 6-3 that a federal prosecution could follow one in a Court of Indian Offenses for the same act, because the tribal and federal laws defined separate offenses. The Justice Department's internal Petite Policy also limits federal prosecutions after a state has already prosecuted the same conduct.

A mistrial does not automatically bar a retrial. If a mistrial is declared due to a hung jury or some necessity, jeopardy has not terminated and a new trial is permitted. However, if a mistrial is declared because of prosecutorial misconduct designed to force a mistrial, double jeopardy bars retrial. The line is whether the government's action gave them a second opportunity to strengthen their case.

The governing standard is manifest necessity, announced by Justice Joseph Story in United States v. Perez (1824), a case in which a jury could not agree. A judge may declare a mistrial over the defendant's objection only when there is a genuine need, such as a deadlocked jury or a juror's sudden illness.

When the defendant asks for a mistrial, retrial is usually allowed. In Oregon v. Kennedy (1982), the Court held that the bar applies only if the prosecutor intended to goad the defense into requesting a mistrial, not merely if the prosecutor made serious errors.

Partial verdicts create hard cases. In Blueford v. Arkansas (2012), jurors reported they were unanimous against the most serious murder charge but deadlocked on a lesser one, and the Court held that the report was not a final acquittal, so the defendant could be retried on all charges. Juries and deliberation are covered on the jury duty and courts page.

The Self-Incrimination Clause gives every person the right to refuse to answer questions or provide testimony that could expose them to criminal prosecution. In a criminal trial, a defendant cannot be called to the stand and forced to testify. Witnesses in other proceedings can invoke the right to refuse to answer specific questions. Invoking the Fifth Amendment cannot be used as evidence of guilt in a criminal case, a rule established in Griffin v. California (1965).

The right grew out of resistance to the English Court of Star Chamber, which forced suspects to swear an oath and answer questions about their own beliefs and conduct. The pamphleteer John Lilburne refused in 1637, and Parliament abolished Star Chamber in 1641. The pre-Constitution history page explains what the colonists inherited.

The privilege applies outside criminal courts as well, including before Congress. During the 1950s, many witnesses called before the House Un-American Activities Committee invoked the Fifth rather than answer questions about Communist ties, and the Supreme Court upheld their right to do so in Quinn v. United States (1955). The House of Representatives page explains how committees operate.

The right belongs only to individuals. Corporations and other organizations cannot invoke it, so an employee who keeps company records must produce them when subpoenaed. In civil cases, unlike criminal ones, a judge or jury may draw an adverse inference from a party's refusal to testify.

The Fifth Amendment only protects testimonial evidence, meaning communications from your mind. It does not protect physical evidence. The government can compel you to provide a blood sample, stand in a lineup, give a handwriting sample, or submit to fingerprinting without violating the Fifth Amendment. The key distinction the Supreme Court has drawn is between a key to a strongbox (physical, non-testimonial) and the combination to a safe (mental, testimonial). Knowing and communicating the combination reveals the contents of your mind.

The key case is Schmerber v. California (1966), in which the Court held 5-4 that a blood sample drawn at a hospital from a drunk-driving suspect was not testimonial. The following year, it held the same for being placed in a lineup and for giving a handwriting sample.

Producing documents can sometimes be testimonial. In United States v. Hubbell (2000), the Court held that forcing a witness to assemble and hand over large categories of documents amounted to compelled testimony, because it required him to use the contents of his own mind to identify what the government wanted.

Phones have made the question urgent. Courts are divided on whether police can force someone to reveal a passcode, and many treat unlocking with a fingerprint or face scan differently from disclosing a memorized code. Searches of the phone itself fall under the Fourth Amendment and are discussed on the privacy and surveillance page.

The most famous application of the Self-Incrimination Clause is the Miranda warning. In Miranda v. Arizona (1966), the Supreme Court held that when police take someone into custody and interrogate them, they must first inform the person of their rights: the right to remain silent, the warning that anything said can be used against them, the right to an attorney, and the right to a court-appointed attorney if they cannot afford one. Statements made in violation of Miranda are generally inadmissible in court, though there are exceptions.

The warnings are required only when a person is both in custody and being interrogated. In Rhode Island v. Innis (1980), the Court defined interrogation to include words or actions police should know are reasonably likely to prompt an incriminating response, while Berkemer v. McCarty (1984) held that ordinary traffic stops are not custody.

Congress tried to overrule Miranda in 1968 with a statute making voluntary confessions admissible regardless of warnings. In Dickerson v. United States (2000), the Court held 7-2, in an opinion by Chief Justice William Rehnquist, that Miranda is a constitutional rule Congress cannot override.

The Court has also created exceptions. New York v. Quarles (1984) allowed questions about a hidden gun before warnings when public safety was at risk, Berghuis v. Thompkins (2010) held that a suspect must clearly say he is invoking the right to silence, and Vega v. Tekoh (2022) held that a Miranda violation alone cannot support a civil rights lawsuit. Miranda itself is one of the landmark Supreme Court cases.

The government can compel a witness to testify despite a Fifth Amendment claim by granting immunity. Transactional immunity bars prosecution for any offense related to the compelled testimony. Use immunity, the more common form, only bars the government from using the testimony itself against the witness, though they can still prosecute using independently obtained evidence. Once immunity is granted, the witness no longer faces self-incrimination and must answer questions or face contempt.

The modern federal immunity statute dates to 1970, and in Kastigar v. United States (1972) the Court upheld use immunity as a full substitute for the privilege. If the government later prosecutes the witness, it must prove that every piece of its evidence came from a source independent of the immunized testimony.

That burden can be decisive. Oliver North testified before Congress under a grant of immunity in 1987 about the Iran-Contra affair. His later convictions were vacated because trial witnesses may have been influenced by his nationally televised testimony, and the charges were dismissed in 1991. See how congressional investigations work on the Senate page.

A witness who refuses to testify after receiving immunity can be held in civil contempt and jailed until agreeing to testify, typically for no longer than the life of the grand jury. Grand juries and the courts are described on the jury duty and courts page.

Due process means the government must follow established, fair procedures before it can take away your life, liberty, or property. At a minimum, this means notice that action is being taken against you and a meaningful opportunity to be heard. It applies in criminal prosecutions, civil forfeitures, license revocations, and any other government action that deprives you of something protected by the clause.

The idea traces to Magna Carta in 1215, which promised that no free man would be imprisoned or dispossessed except by the lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land. A 1354 English statute first used the words due process of law. The pre-Constitution history page covers these English roots.

Courts decide how much process is due by weighing three factors from Mathews v. Eldridge (1976): the private interest at stake, the risk that the current procedures will produce an error and the value of additional safeguards, and the government's interest, including the cost of more process.

Due process also requires laws to be clear. Under the vagueness doctrine, a criminal law is void if ordinary people cannot understand what it forbids. The Court struck down part of a federal sentencing law on this ground in 2015, and in Sessions v. Dimaya (2018) applied the same reasoning to a provision of immigration law used to deport noncitizens.

Procedural due process focuses on the fairness of the process used. Before the government puts you in prison, takes your home, or terminates a government benefit, it must give you adequate notice and an opportunity to challenge the action. The level of process required depends on what is at stake: a capital murder prosecution demands more procedural protection than the revocation of a driver's license.

In Goldberg v. Kelly (1970), the Court held that welfare recipients are entitled to a hearing before their benefits are cut off, because losing them could leave a family without food or shelter. In Mathews, by contrast, it held that Social Security disability benefits could be ended with a hearing afterward.

In criminal cases, due process requires the government to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, as the Court held in In re Winship (1970), and under Brady v. Maryland (1963) prosecutors must disclose evidence favorable to the accused that is material to guilt or punishment.

Civil forfeiture, in which the government seizes property connected to a crime, has drawn scrutiny. In Culley v. Marshall (2024), the Court held 6-3 that due process does not require a separate early hearing before police keep a seized car pending forfeiture. Protections against excessive fines appear in the Bill of Rights.

Substantive due process is a more controversial doctrine that developed in the late 19th and 20th centuries. It holds that certain fundamental rights are so important that the government cannot take them away regardless of the procedures used. Courts have used substantive due process to protect rights not explicitly listed in the Constitution, including the right to marry, the right to raise children, the right to contraception, and the right to privacy generally. Critics argue substantive due process allows judges to impose their own preferences under constitutional cover. Supporters say it protects essential liberties the Framers could not have specifically anticipated.

The doctrine's early use protected business. In Lochner v. New York (1905), the Court struck down a law limiting bakers to 60 hours of work per week as a violation of liberty of contract. That era ended in 1937, when West Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish upheld a state minimum wage law.

Later cases applied it to personal life, including Griswold v. Connecticut (1965) on contraception, Loving v. Virginia (1967) on interracial marriage, and Obergefell v. Hodges (2015) on same-sex marriage. Many appear on the landmark Supreme Court cases page.

In Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization (2022), the Court overruled Roe v. Wade and returned abortion regulation to the states, applying the test from Washington v. Glucksberg (1997): an unwritten right is protected only if it is deeply rooted in the nation's history and tradition. Dobbs was decided under the Fourteenth Amendment's due process clause.

The Fifth Amendment's Due Process Clause applies to the federal government. The 14th Amendment contains an identical clause that applies to state governments. Together, they ensure that neither federal nor state action can deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process. The 14th Amendment's Due Process Clause has also been used to incorporate most of the Bill of Rights against the states, meaning states must respect most of the rights in the first ten amendments.

Before the Civil War, the Bill of Rights restrained only the federal government, as the Court held in Barron v. Baltimore (1833). The Fourteenth Amendment, ratified July 9, 1868, added a due process clause aimed directly at the states.

The relationship also runs the other way. In Bolling v. Sharpe (1954), decided the same day as Brown v. Board of Education, the Court held that the Fifth Amendment's due process clause barred segregated public schools in Washington, D.C., which is governed by federal rather than state law. The civil rights page covers these cases.

Incorporation has continued into recent years. In Timbs v. Indiana (2019), the Court applied the ban on excessive fines to the states, and in Ramos v. Louisiana (2020) it required unanimous jury verdicts in state felony trials. Only a few guarantees, including the grand jury requirement, remain unincorporated; the full list is on the Bill of Rights page.

Eminent domain is the inherent power of any government to take private property for public use. It predates the Constitution. The Takings Clause does not give the government this power; it limits it. The government may exercise eminent domain, but it must satisfy two conditions: the taking must be for public use, and the owner must receive just compensation, which courts have interpreted as fair market value.

The Takings Clause was the first Bill of Rights guarantee the Supreme Court applied to the states, in Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad Co. v. Chicago (1897), through the Fourteenth Amendment.

A taking is carried out through a condemnation lawsuit, in which a court sets the compensation if the owner and government cannot agree. Under a 1931 federal law, the government may take title to land immediately by depositing its estimate of the property's value with the court, with the final amount decided later.

Eminent domain has built much of the country's infrastructure. The Interstate Highway System required land from a vast number of owners and displaced more than 475,000 households, over a million people by the U.S. Department of Transportation's estimate, many of them in Black and low-income urban neighborhoods. The eminent domain page covers the subject in depth.

A physical taking is straightforward: the government takes your land to build a road. A regulatory taking is more complex: the government enacts a regulation that so severely limits what you can do with your property that it effectively takes it without formally acquiring it. The Supreme Court established in Penn Central Transportation Co. v. New York City (1978) a multi-factor test for when regulations go so far they constitute a taking requiring compensation. A regulation that eliminates all economic value of a property is always a taking under Lucas v. South Carolina Coastal Council (1992).

Penn Central involved New York City's landmarks law, which blocked plans for a 55-story office tower above Grand Central Terminal. The Court upheld the law 6-3, weighing the regulation's economic impact, its interference with the owner's reasonable investment-backed expectations, and the character of the government action.

Any permanent physical occupation is a taking, however small. In Loretto v. Teleprompter Manhattan CATV Corp. (1982), a small cable television box attached to an apartment building required compensation, and in Cedar Point Nursery v. Hassid (2021) the Court held 6-3 that a California rule letting union organizers enter farms for set periods was a physical taking.

Owners now have easier access to federal court. In Knick v. Township of Scott (2019), the Court overruled a 1985 decision that had required property owners to go through state courts first, allowing them to sue in the federal courts as soon as a taking occurs. The eminent domain page covers regulatory takings further.

Originally, public use meant the government was directly using the property for a public purpose, such as a courthouse, highway, or military base. Over time, courts broadened the definition to include public purpose, meaning any use that benefits the public generally, including urban renewal projects and economic development. The Supreme Court's 2005 decision in Kelo v. City of New London extended this to allow transfer of property from one private owner to another private developer as long as the redevelopment plan served a broader public economic purpose. The decision triggered a national backlash and more than 40 states amended their own eminent domain laws to provide stricter protections.

Two earlier cases paved the way for Kelo. Berman v. Parker (1954) unanimously upheld a Washington, D.C., urban renewal plan that included a department store that was not itself blighted, and Hawaii Housing Authority v. Midkiff (1984) upheld Hawaii's transfer of land from large estates to the homeowners who leased it.

Reaction to Kelo came from the executive branch as well as the states. On the first anniversary of the decision in June 2006, President George W. Bush signed an executive order limiting federal agencies' use of eminent domain to cases benefiting the general public rather than merely advancing private parties' economic interests.

State courts had already wrestled with the issue. In 1981, the Michigan Supreme Court allowed Detroit to clear the Poletown neighborhood, home to about 4,200 people, for a General Motors plant; in 2004, the same court overruled that decision, holding that economic development alone is not a public use under the state constitution.

Just compensation has been interpreted by courts as fair market value, meaning what a willing buyer would pay a willing seller in an arm's-length transaction. This standard has been criticized for systematically under-compensating property owners, particularly homeowners with strong personal attachments to their property that are not reflected in market price. Moving costs, lost business goodwill, and subjective value are generally not compensable under the current standard, a limitation that legal scholars on both left and right have noted.

The Court has held firmly to market value. In United States v. 564.54 Acres of Land (1979), a Lutheran church whose summer camps were taken for a federal project was denied the higher cost of building replacement camps and received only the market value of the land.

Congress has offered more than the Constitution requires. The Uniform Relocation Assistance and Real Property Acquisition Policies Act of 1970 requires federal and federally funded projects to pay moving costs and provide relocation help to displaced residents and businesses. See how such laws pass in how a bill becomes law.

The clause also protects home equity. In Tyler v. Hennepin County (2023), a unanimous Court held that a Minnesota county that seized a 94-year-old woman's condominium over about $15,000 in unpaid taxes and sold it for $40,000 could not keep the surplus, because doing so was a taking. In Pung v. Isabella County (June 23, 2026), a unanimous Court added that the Takings Clause does not require fair market value as the measure after a tax foreclosure: the owner's claim is measured by the price of a fairly run tax sale. The Michigan home in that case was valued at about $194,000 and sold for $76,008 over a tax debt of about $2,242.

Supporters of the Kelo majority argue that cities and states are better positioned than federal courts to determine what serves the public good. Economic development, job creation, and urban revitalization benefit the community broadly and qualify as legitimate public purposes. Requiring direct government ownership or use as a condition of eminent domain would prevent governments from partnering with private entities to accomplish public goals, including affordable housing and commercial development of blighted areas.

Justice John Paul Stevens's majority opinion relied on Berman and Midkiff and on a long tradition of deferring to legislatures about what serves the public. New London had adopted a comprehensive redevelopment plan, prepared by a development corporation, that projected more than 1,000 new jobs and increased tax revenue for a city that had been declared economically distressed.

The majority also emphasized that its ruling set only a federal minimum. Stevens wrote that states remained free to place further restrictions on the taking power, an invitation that most state legislatures accepted within a few years.

Supporters add that cities have used eminent domain for decades to assemble land for projects that would be impossible if a single holdout could block them, from urban renewal to sports venues. The eminent domain and local government pages explain how these decisions are made.

Critics of Kelo, including both liberal and conservative legal scholars, argue that allowing the government to take property from one private owner and transfer it to another private developer for economic reasons essentially removes any limit on eminent domain. As Justice O'Connor wrote in dissent, all private property is now vulnerable to being taken and transferred to another private owner, so long as it might be upgraded. The original meaning of public use, they argue, required actual public access or ownership, not merely an economic benefit that might flow to the public indirectly.

Justice Clarence Thomas wrote a separate dissent arguing that public use should mean what it says: property the government owns or the public has a legal right to use. He noted that urban renewal programs had fallen disproportionately on poor and minority communities, which have the least political power to resist.

The reaction crossed party lines. Within a few years, more than 40 states changed their laws to restrict takings for economic development, some through ballot measures approved by voters. The eminent domain fight in Connecticut became a national symbol for property rights advocates.

Critics also point to what happened in New London. The development never materialized, and the Fort Trumbull land where Susette Kelo's house stood remained largely empty for years. The eminent domain page follows the aftermath.

A third and growing debate concerns regulatory takings. As governments impose more environmental regulations, zoning restrictions, and land use controls, property owners increasingly argue that these regulations have effectively taken their property without compensation. Courts have struggled to define when a regulation becomes a taking. Landowners argue the current Penn Central balancing test gives governments too much latitude to regulate property into worthlessness without paying for it. Others argue that compensation requirements would chill necessary environmental and safety regulation.

The problem is a century old. In Pennsylvania Coal Co. v. Mahon (1922), Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote that property may be regulated to a certain extent, but if regulation goes too far it will be recognized as a taking, a sentence courts have been trying to apply ever since.

Some rules are firmer than others. In Tahoe-Sierra Preservation Council v. Tahoe Regional Planning Agency (2002), the Court held that a 32-month building moratorium near Lake Tahoe was not automatically a taking. But conditions attached to building permits must have a close connection and rough proportionality to a project's impact, a rule the Court unanimously extended to legislatively set impact fees in Sheetz v. County of El Dorado (2024).

The debate often involves environmental rules on wetlands, endangered species habitat, and coastal development, many administered by agencies such as the Department of the Interior. More on takings appears on the eminent domain page.