Chapter 12 Article 2, Justice Breyer Insists Death Penalty Is Cruel, Even When Supreme Court Won’t
As stated throughout chapter twelve of the textbook, Constitutional Law and the Criminal Justice System by J. Scott Harr, Karen M. Hess, Christine Orthmann, and Jonathon Kingsbury, it states the rights of the United States, (U.S.) citizens under the eighth amendment. Pursuing this further, the eighth amendment was instituted into the U.S. Constitution, under the Bill of Rights, to insure that the U.S. Government could not enact excessive bail, unwarranted fines, or cruel and unusual punishment (Harr, Hess, Orthmann, & Kingsbury, 2015, p. 411). According to the textbook, there is actually no distant definition of what cruel and unusual punishment essentially is (Harr, Hess, Orthmann, & Kingsbury, 2015, p. 416). In fact, cruel and unusual punishment, according to the text is whatever society views it to be at a given time, as long as
…show more content…
416-417). That being said, today most people might view cruel and unusual punishment as sentencing someone to death, however, isn’t the act of making someone sit and wait for years, knowing that he or she is scheduled to die, psychologically cruel? Moving on, as of 2016, in the state of California alone, there are currently 743 people on death row (Farias, 2016). According to Justice Stephen Breyer, the death penalty overall is unconstitutional, and as such, should be abolished in the state of California (Farias, 2016). In addition, Richard Delmer Boyer was charged and convicted for the robbery and the murder of an elderly couple (Farias, 2016). Boyer has now been on death row for 32 years (Farias, 2016). Pursuing this further, after over 22 years, Boyer petitioned the Supreme Court hoping that they would consider changing his sentencing (Farias, 2016). The fact that Boyer
The 8th amendment prohibits any type of punishment that is cruel or unusual in our correctional system. For example, in prison, a guard cannot cut an inmate's ear off or subjugate him/her to a whipping for finding contraband in their bunk.
“Excessive bail shall not be required... nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.” The definition of a cruel or unusual punishment is to be interpreted by the reader, but the 10th amendment would also suggest that the definition is up to the states. This is because the 10th amendment clarifies that, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” This suggests that the people or their state representatives should vote to define parts of the constitution that have interpretive parts.
Today, any disputes that involve amounts less than $75000 will not be handled in a federal court. The eighth admindment " excessive bail shall not be required Nor excessive fines imposed nor cruel unusuall punishments inflicted. "This amendment prohibits excessive fines and bail, as well as cruel and unusual punishments. The phrase “cruel and unusual punishments” first appeared in the Bill of Rights.
The Eighth Amendment states “Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted” (The Eighth Amendment 231).When the Eighth amendment was written, there was an obvious concern for the mistreatment of criminals by the judicial system. The problem that arose was not the inability of the Supreme Court to understand the meaning between the words, but the inability to agree with what constitutes “Cruel and Unusual”. What one Justice considered not enough, another might feel that the punishment was too severe. McWilliams writes, “Even Justice Black, advocate for the proposition “that there are ‘absolutes’ in our Bill of Rights, and that they were put there on purpose by men who knew what
In discussion of the 8th amendment the topic that will be covered is the history before the amendment has been attached to the Bill of Rights, the interpretations of the amendment, and the amendment in affecting this generation today. This amendment officially states in the Constitution, “Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted” (CRS/LII Annotated Constitution Eighth Amendment). This emendation is about the government mandating that punishments are not allowed when they are cruel or unusual. “…; but it is safe to affirm that punishments of torture [such as drawing and quartering, emboweling alive, beheading, public dissecting, and burning alive], and all the others in the
The suffering, pain, or humiliation, of a person is considered cruel and unusual punishments and is not acceptable by the Eighth Amendment which states the prohibiting the federal government from imposing excessive bail, excessive fines, or cruel and unusual punishments. With this amendment you have the rights of; protection from physical brutality, rape, sexual assault, and sexual harassment, your rights to decent conditions in prison, also your rights to medical care.
Is the death penalty “cruel and unusual” and in violation of the 8th Amendment? We should us it sparely but I do not think it’s cruel and unusual nor is it violating the 8th amendment. We need to make sure the crime fits the punishment. In mid-1993, the Death Penalty Information Center received a request from Rep. Don Edwards, then Chair of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Civil and Constitutional Rights, to prepare a report on the problem of innocent people on death row. At that time, crime bills were being introduced which involved an expansion of the federal death penalty and a curtailing of the capital appeal process. There also had been a series of highly publicized releases of people from death row in which it had belatedly been discovered
The prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment largely concerns itself with disproportionate and arbitrary punishments imposed by the government. “The Court has repeatedly emphasized the Eighth Amendment’s expansive and vital character and its capacity for evolutionary growth.” (Kanovitz, 2010) Cruelty is interpreted as actions that oppose current standards of decency. As public opinion grows and changes these standards are apt to change. The vague wording of the Eighth Amendment allows room for the opinion of what punishments are acceptable to adapt to modern times.
The supreme court made a ruling that determined that one’s punishment must be equal to the crime committed due to the eighth amendment that prohibits cruel and unusual punishment. “The Court has attempted to simultaneously satisfy its moral inclinations and the text of the Constitution, but these efforts have resulted in an inconsistent and confusing Eighth Amendment Punishments Clause jurisprudence” (Ryan, 2010, p. 569).
The Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, sanctioned in 1791, has three arrangements. The CRUEL AND UNUSUAL PUNISHMENTS CLAUSE confines the seriousness of disciplines that state and governments may force upon people who have been indicted a criminal offense. The Excessive
The Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution states, “Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishment inflicted.” This amendment is most commonly used in context when discussing capital punishment, otherwise known as the death penalty. Many people in today’s society believe that the death penalty is unconstitutional, that it violates the Eighth Amendment because it is considered cruel and unusual punishment. This should not be considered cruel nor unusual because the people receiving the death sentence have committed unspeakable crimes, therefore, punishing them with the death penalty is fair. The death penalty can help prevent the act of lynching.
To understand the topic of my paper we have to understand what cruel and unusual punishment means. Dictionary.com states that it is “punishment prohibited by the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution. Cruel and unusual punishment includes torture, deliberately degrading punishment, or punishment that is too severe for the crime committed. This concept helps guarantee due process even to convicted criminals. Many people have argued that capital punishment should be considered cruel and unusual punishment” (Dictionary.com 2017).
In the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States, it is stated that cruel and
In the United States Constitution, the 8th Amendment prohibits the use and practices of cruel and unusual punishment. What exactly is considered to be cruel and unusual punishment? This question is a hot topic among America's many different current controversies. Many people are saying that the use of capital punishment (to be sentenced to death as a penalty in the eyes of the law [a capital crime]. An execution [capital punishment]) is a direct violation of the 8th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States (Capital Punishment). They say there should be another way to deal with these criminals other than having them executed. The purpose of this paper is to give a brief history of the death penalty
“In a monumental 1972 decision by the US Supreme Court, all but a few death penalty statutes in the United States were declared unconstitutional” (Radelet & Borg, 2000,