A sentencing court cannot properly revoke a defendant's probation for failure to pay a fine and make restitution, absent evidence and findings that he was somehow responsible for the failure or that alternative forms of punishment were inadequate to meet the State's interest in punishment and deterrence. Decided May 24, 1983 (argued January 11, 1983). Opinion of the Court: Sandra Day O'Connor → go there Applied: the Fourteenth Amendment → go there Topic: Other criminal sentences. Bearden v. Georgia, 461 U.S. 660 (1983), was a landmark U.S. Supreme Court case holding that a local government can only imprison or jail someone for not paying a fine if it can be shown, by means of a hearing, that the person in question could have paid it but "willfully" chose not to do so. Wiki link