The Eighth Amendment

The 8th Amendment to the United States Constitution protects the people from a government who may try to restrict or null your right to fair bail. The right restricts the judicial branch from performing any unfair procedures that can be directed towards a defendant, which is due process. Which is to state that the right to fair bail falls under due process because it is selectively incorporated in order to protect one’s unalienable rights of life, liberty, and property. The right guarantees that the defendant who is paying bail is given a fair/reasonable bail price.

The Eighth Amendment was introduced as a part of the Bill of Rights into the U.S. Constitution on September 5, 1789, and was voted for by 9 our of the 12 states on December 15, 1971. Many of us may ask what exactly is the Eighth Amendment? The amendment states that excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed. It also states that cruel and unusual punishment shall not be inflicted. What does that mean? That means: “Bail” is money that a charged person gives to the court as a guarantee that he or she will be there for a trial. The amount of bail assigned depends on the type of crime committed, if the crime is serious the bail will be higher. When the Eighth Amendment was written, the framers were taking into consideration

The United States Supreme Court reversed the decision, however, saying that the removal of someone's citizenship was a violation of their 8th Amendment right that stated “Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.” It came to this conclusion because it felt that the effect of the decision amounted to "the total destruction of the individual's status in organized society.”

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.

Are the courts violating the 8th amendment by imposing mandatory life imprisonment on juvenile offenders? Is this sentence initiating cruel and unusual punishment to juveniles?

Unfortunately and likely from the lack of medical experiences when performing executions, there have been several documented botched executions since the Gregg v. Georgia decision which re-constitutionalized the death penalty. There have been 47 total botched executions including 35 by lethal injection and 1 attempted execution by lethal injection. Although the Supreme Court in Baze v. Rees state that isolated mishaps alone do not violate the Eighth Amendment, it is hard to see how the botched executions do not violate the Eighth amendment of the individual in question. For example in several instances, the executioners were unable to find an adequate vein which often required constant probing and stabbing. As a testament to the lack of medical

The death penalty is a subject that is ever changing and has been changed in many occasions during its long history in society. There where moments where being mentally ill, or being a juvenile was a tickets out of the death penalty no matter how severe or horrid the crime commited truly was. The reason this changed occured it because the courts believe it is a violation of the 8th amendment which protects people from cruel and unsual punishment, but this makes me begin to think if this amendment is used to protect only those that apply to these certain conditions isnt it a cruel and unsual punishment for the people that do not fall under these catergories. Many individuals believe that a child is not yet

Each day, men, women and children are put behind bars suffer from lack of access to medical health care. Chronic illnesses go untreated, emergencies are ignored, and patients with serious illnesses fail to receive needed care. A small failure to medical care can turn in to death of an inmate if left untreated. Prisoners are humans whether inmates or not, with normal health issues or diseases. Even a common cold is an example of an illness that needs treatment. A lot with what is wrong with the health care system today, in the United States deals with money. Within prisons, it is an entire different story. The mission of medical care is to diagnose, comfort and cure. These goals are not being achieved within the prison system. Care needs to be given to every inmate, even the most despised and violent one among them all.

Throughout the history of this ever-expanding nation as well as many others, there have been times in which words alone were able to stop an action. Consequences were bountiful and punishment seemed to be thought of on the fly. For instance, a convicted murderer may have gotten thrown in jail, however a man who may have sneezed on the king would have been burned at the stake for “Crimes against the Kingdom.”  In modern times it seems nearly impossible to think that such unfathomable treatment was commonplace and, worse yet, a public spectacle. After many years of being free of British rule, the Framers of the United States Constitution had envisioned a society based on the treatment from

The Eighth Amendment ratified in 1791, and it had three clauses. The clauses are Cruel and Unusual Punishment, Excessive Fines, and Excessive bail. The Cruel and Unusual Punishment means that the state and federal government restrict how extreme the punishment is to a person who has done a crime. This clause is made so that the people that are accused are not tortured and killed cruelly. The Excessive Fines restrict the state and federal government the amount of money a person fined for a crime. This clause created was so that the government cannot take a lot of your money away. The Excessive bail means that courts can’t give a tremendous amount of bond to a person who has broken the law. This clause created so that the judge and jury cannot already make their decision before the case even begins. This is why the saying “an accused is presumed innocent until found guilty” is established.

[In an effort to reduce crime rates over the last two decades, there was a push to increase arrests, and length of incarceration of criminal offenders. Due to the increase in numbers of offenders incarcerated and the length of their sentences the prison has an increasing population of elderly offenders. In light of this situation, the need to provide medical care for this population has become increasingly more expensive than anyone anticipated. Therefore, there has been a great deal of attention to what is known as compassionate release. In order to evaluate the arguments for and against this legislation we will look at the arguments on both sides, what values underlie each position, how medical release fits into the discussion, and alternatives to the problem.

When citizens of society break federal and state laws they face a punishment known as “ jail” or “ prison”, which purpose is to not only to serve as a punishment but to also act as a program designed to help convicts enter back in to the society as a better person. As citizens of the United States we have civil rights granted to us from the U.S. Constitution that are not meant to just be taken away from us whenever the correctional system feels like it. Many people believe that once a person is put into prison that all of the prisoners’ rights are stripped form them, which is an untrue statement. Some of the basic prisoner laws state that all prisoners must be respected to and their life valued as a human being, it should be no type or

Dementia, a disease characterized with the loss of brain functions; loss of memory, thinking and ability to reason clearly, has been on the rise in the American prisons. Law on the mandatory sentencing of criminals in the 1970s gave rise to the present high population of inmates and the costs associated. This disease associated with the elderly, is evident in the states and federal prisons with the numbers of elderly inmates on the rise, 125 000 by 2010. The budgets amounting from the costs incurred in the furnishing of specialized care to these inmates who cannot even clean or dress themselves are high. The inmates expect their health costs taken by the federal government being a part of state corrections costs still on the rise. The federal government and state agencies have to work on strategies focused at reducing the rising costs of the aging inmate population (NYT, 2012).

Disconnecting elderly folks from their families and incarcerating every person who commits crime without thinking logically: Is this what modernization and our teachings adds up to? Is it even fair that human beings are taught to do these things to us from the very beginning of our educational lives? Kwame Anthony Appiah discusses several points in “How The Future Will Judge Us?” that he believes are negatively affecting our society in terms of how we treat people directly or indirectly. These points include criticism of our prison system, institutionalized and isolated elderly, the destruction of the environment, and the industrial meat production system. His main concern regarding these subjects is for the upcoming generation which might view us negatively. He makes two important claims; firstly, no other country has as extensive a populace in jail as compared to America, including non-violent offenders, and secondly, while some elderly Americans may live freely, they are frequently disconnected from their families despite having many living relatives. These problems can be solved by thinking logically to figure out permanent solutions. For instance, we should provide the elderly with emotional and medical needs because they deserve it, and secondly, a more profound way to deal with prisoners is through rehabilitation programs because unlike animals, they have the ability to understand the difference between right and wrong.

With wanting to be able to produce 100% factual evidence for this report and aiming to answer every aim set out, it became apparent that more research would have to be undertaken. An investigation through the SPS website lead to a general inquiries email address, and for this report the initial aim was asked, “Is there a legal definition of what exactly an older prisoner is” and unsurprisingly after awaiting a response, the answer was, “there is no legal definition or legislation as to what the SPS see as an older