In the 1932 case Hawks et al. v. Hamill et al., the U.S Supreme Court was tasked with deciding whether a Georgia state law that allowed for the seizure and sale of property to satisfy tax debts, without providing prior notice or opportunity for hearing, violated due process rights under the Fourteenth Amendment. The plaintiffs were landowners whose properties had been sold by county officials to pay off delinquent taxes; they argued that they had not received adequate notice before their lands were seized and sold. The court ruled in favor of Hawks and others, finding that such seizures indeed infringed upon their constitutional right to due process as guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment. This decision underscored an important principle: even when it comes to collecting taxes, government authorities must respect citizens' procedural rights.

In the dissenting opinion for Hawks et al. v. Hamill et al., Justice Stone argued that the majority's decision to uphold a Georgia statute allowing creditors to seize and sell debtors' property without prior notice or hearing was in violation of due process rights under the Fourteenth Amendment. He contended that such an abrupt seizure, without any opportunity for debtors to challenge it beforehand, could lead to irreversible harm if mistakes were made or if there were valid defenses against repayment claims. Furthermore, he pointed out that other states had managed to protect creditors' interests while also providing procedural safeguards for debtors; thus proving it possible for both parties’ rights be respected simultaneously. In his view, by failing to strike down this law as unconstitutional, the court was effectively endorsing state-sanctioned deprivation of property without due process.