The Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution Essay

The 8th amendment states, “ Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.” Which brings me to the case of Thompson vs. Oklahoma. The debate is on whether or not capital punishment should be given to minors. On one hand, some may argue that Thompson should have been charged with capital punishment because “his acts were heinous and cruel” (Pearson Prentice Hall: n.d.). On the other hand, others such as Oklahoma argue that it is a violation of the 8th amendment under “cruel and unusual punishment.” This creates the argument of Thompson vs. Oklahoma.

The 8th amendment says that excessive bail shall not be required, or excessive fines, or cruel and unusual punishment.

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

The famous Founding Fathers of the United States created critical documents to protect the citizens of the country they were establishing. These documents included the Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights. The latter, the Bill of Rights, ensures certain rights to all citizens, and the Eighth Amendment in particular, protects citizens against cruel or unusual punishments for breaking the law. When analyzing the protection under the Eighth Amendment one must also look at all the aspects of the law including: the history of the law, the modern uses and abuses of the law, and the law’s current effectiveness.

The moral and ethical debate on the sentencing and enforcement of capital punishment has long baffled the citizens and governing powers of the United States. Throughout time, the interpretation of the U.S. Constitution, and the vast majority beliefs of Americans, have been in a constant state of perplexity. Before the 1960s, the Fifth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution were interpreted as permitting the death penalty. However, in the early 1960s, it was suggested that the death penalty was a "cruel and unusual" punishment and therefore unconstitutional under the Eighth Amendment. Many argue that capital punishment is an absolute necessity, in order to deter crime, and to ‘make things right’ following a heinous crime of murder. Despite the belief that capital punishment may seem to be the only tangible, permanent solution to ending future capital offenses, the United States should remove this cruel and unnecessary form of punishment from our current judicial systems.

The Eighth Amendment was tested through many Supreme Court and there were some very significant ones such as the Miller v. Alabama. The no cruel or unusual aspect of the Eighth Amendment gives protection of undeserving or unreasonable punishment to a citizen that commits a crime. As Supreme Court cases regarding the Eighth Amendment open and closed the meaning of no cruel or unusual punishment changed; the sentencing of death is not considered cruel and/or unusual to a suspect that is mentally insane this aspect of the Eighth Amendment is important to the wrongfully accused people that are sentenced something for a crime that they did not commit. A significant

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.

The Eighth Amendment is intended to protect prisoners before they’re tried and after they’re convicted. It restricts excessive bail, fines, and cruel and unusual punishments. When looking back at laws from early America compared to the laws now, they were dramatically different regarding the death penalty. For example, in the 1600s, the Divine, Moral and Martial Laws, which provided the death penalty for even minor offenses such as stealing grapes, killing chickens, and trading with Indians, was proposed. Now, capital or first degree murder are typically the only offenses that will result in the death penalty as a punishment, where a couple hundred years ago people could get executed for simple, foolish offenses. Additionally, the Roper v.

In response the five states ratification at the conventions recommended guaranteeing the right to jury trial in civil cases by constitutional amendment. The amendment protected findings of fact in civil cases exceeding certain dollar value from judicial review. Congress decided to add the proposed Bill of Rights to end of the constitution later on, directly to Article Three. “In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved”: When the Seventh Amendment was written in the 1700s, $20 was considered a lot of money. Today, any disputes that involve amounts less than $75000 will not be handled in a federal court. The Supreme Court has held that the Seventh Amendment’s guarantee of a jury trial also guarantees a jury that is of official size, or be able to handle the case. The court decided upon a six-member jury, and believed I would be sufficient to meet the amendment’s requirements in the case of Colgrove v. Battin (1973) and in Ballew v. Georgia (1978) that a five-member jury violated the amendment’s

I agree with you that out of all the elements under the 8th amendment, the one that is the most dyer to prisoners is the cruel and unusual punishment. It comes as no surprise hat when it comes the prisons the guards run the show. That being said, this Claus within the 8th amendment help protect these prisoners from any abuse that may come their.

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

Because the fourteen amendment of the U.S. Constitutions has protections against excessive bail, excessive fines, and cruel punishment, court administrators must be very careful on how to impose the appropriate sentence to offenders, therefore to help court administrators to ensure that they impose the appropriate punishment to offenders they can rely on different tools and factors such as federal sentencing guidelines that are used in federal courts, state laws, the offender’s criminal history, and the role of the offender during the crime among other factors (FindLaw).

There has been numerous class actions challenging prolong solitary confinement. Due process along with rights guaranteed under the eighth and fourteenth amendment has been brought into questioning. The eighth amendment specifically states that the US federal government is prohibited from imposing excessive bail, excessive fines, or cruel and unusual punishment. The fourteenth amendment addresses citizenship rights and equal protection of the laws, which was proposed in response to issues related to former slaves following the American Civil War.

An Impassioned Debate: An overview of the death penalty in America depicts the facts about the eighth amendment. The eighth amendment is the prohibition on cruel and unusual punishments (Masci 1). There are two significant cases that have inflamed the debate over the capital punishment, The Baze v. Reese case, and the Kennedy v. Louisiana case. The first case reveals the strong debate that the execution by lethal injection is inhuman and in violation of the eight amendment. The second case inflamed the

The Eight Amendment of the Constitution of the United States says that “Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted” (Staff). The most debatable and significant part of the Eighth Amendment is the Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause. However, since there is no clear understanding, the meaning of the term “cruel and unusual punishment” should defined more clearly and be evaluated. The Supreme Court has ruled that the death penalty does not violate of the Eighth Amendment's ban on cruel and unusual punishment. This is one of the reasons why the Eight Amendment is passionately debated. According to Death Penalty Law and Legal Definition, the death penalty is defined as “the sentence of execution for murder and some other capital crimes (serious crimes, especially murder, which are punishable by death)”. There is no universal definition for the term “cruel and unusual punishment but usually, a punishment that violates human dignity and is vicious can fall under this category. Therefore, the death penalty should also fall under the same category. This is often brought before the Supreme Court and argued. When the Supreme Court is presented with the opportunity to decide what falls under “cruel and unusual punishment”, it should draw its meaning of what is considered brutal. The death penalty should be considered part a cruel and unusual