Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Eighth Amendment of the United States Constitution prohibits the federal government from imposing excessive bail, excessive fines, or cruel and unusual punishments. This amendment was adopted on December 15, 1791, along with the rest of the United States Bill of Rights. The Amendment serves as a limitation upon the federal government to impose unduly harsh penalties on criminal defendants before and after a conviction. This limitation applies equally to the price for obtaining pretrial release and the punishment for crime after conviction. The phrases in this amendment originated in the English Bill of Rights of 1689.
The prohibition against cruel and unusual punishments has led courts to hold that the Constitution totally prohibits certain kinds of punishment, such as drawing and quartering. Under the Cruel and Unusual Punishment Clause, the Supreme Court has struck down the application of capital punishment in some instances, but capital punishment is still permitted in some cases where the defendant is convicted of murder.
The Supreme Court has held that the Excessive Fines Clause prohibits fines that are "so grossly excessive as to amount to a deprivation of property without due process of law". The Court struck down a fine as excessive for the first time in United States v. Bajakajian. Under the Excessive Bail Clause, the Supreme Court has held that the federal government cannot set bail at "a figure higher than is reasonably calculated" to ensure the defendant's appearance at trial.
The Supreme Court has ruled that the Cruel and Unusual Punishment Clause applies to the states as well as to the federal government, but the Excessive Bail Clause has not been applied to the states. On February 20, 2019, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously in Timbs v. Indiana that the Excessive Fines Clause also applies to the states.
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Background
The Eighth Amendment was adopted, as part of the Bill of Rights, in 1791. It is almost identical to a provision in the English Bill of Rights of 1689, in which Parliament declared, "as their ancestors in like cases have usually done... that excessive bail ought not to be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted."The provision was largely inspired by the case in England of Titus Oates who, after the ascension of King James II in 1685, was tried for multiple acts of perjury that had led to executions of many people Oates had wrongly accused. Oates was sentenced to imprisonment, including an annual ordeal of being taken out for two days pillory plus one day of whipping while tied to a moving cart. The Oates case eventually became a topic of the U.S. Supreme Court's Eighth Amendment jurisprudence. The punishment of Oates involved ordinary penalties collectively imposed in a barbaric, excessive and bizarre manner. The reason why the judges in Oates' perjury case were not allowed to impose the death penalty may be because such a punishment would have deterred even honest witnesses from testifying in later cases.
England's declaration against "cruel and unusual punishments" was approved by Parliament in February 1689, and was read to King William III and his wife Queen Mary II on the following day. Members of Parliament then explained in August 1689 that "the Commons had a particular regard... when that Declaration was first made" to punishments like the one that had been inflicted by the King's Bench against Titus Oates. Parliament then enacted the English Bill of Rights into law in December 1689. Members of parliament characterized the punishment in the Oates case as not just "barbarous" and "inhuman" but also "extravagant" and "exorbitant".
There is some scholarly dispute about whom the clause intended to limit. In England, the "cruel and unusual punishments" clause may have been a limitation on the discretion of judges, requiring them to adhere to precedent. According to the great treatise of the 1760s by William Blackstone entitled Commentaries on the Laws of England:
Virginia adopted this provision of the English Bill of Rights in the Virginia Declaration of Rights of 1776, and the Virginia convention that ratified the U.S. Constitution recommended in 1788 that this language also be included in the Constitution. Virginians such as George Mason and Patrick Henry wanted to ensure this restriction would also be applied as a limitation on Congress. Mason warned that, otherwise, Congress may "inflict unusual and severe punishments". Henry emphasized that Congress should not be allowed to depart from precedent:
Ultimately, Henry and Mason prevailed, and the Eighth Amendment was adopted. James Madison changed "ought" to "shall", when he proposed the amendment to Congress in 1789.
Excessive bail
In England, sheriffs originally determined whether to grant bail to criminal suspects. Since they tended to abuse their power, Parliament passed a statute in 1275 whereby bailable and non-bailable offenses were defined. The King's judges often subverted the provisions of the law. It was held that an individual may be held without bail upon the Sovereign's command. Eventually, the Petition of Right of 1628 argued that the King did not have such authority. Later, technicalities in the law were exploited to keep the accused imprisoned without bail even where the offenses were bailable; such loopholes were for the most part closed by the Habeas Corpus Act 1679. Thereafter, judges were compelled to set bail, but they often required impracticable amounts. Finally, the English Bill of Rights held that "excessive bail ought not to be required."However, the English Bill of Rights did not determine the distinction between bailable and non-bailable offenses. Thus, the Eighth Amendment has been interpreted to mean that bail may be denied if the charges are sufficiently serious.
The Supreme Court has also permitted "preventive" detention without bail. In United States v. Salerno,, the Supreme Court held that the only limitation imposed by the Excessive Bail Clause is that "the government's proposed conditions of release or detention not be 'excessive' in light of the perceived evil". In Stack v. Boyle,, the Supreme Court declared that a bail amount is "excessive" under the Eighth Amendment if it were "a figure higher than is reasonably calculated" to ensure the defendant's appearance at trial.
The incorporation status of the Excessive Bail Clause is unclear. In Schilb v. Kuebel, 404 U.S. 357, the Court stated in dicta: "Bail, of course, is basic to our system of law, and the Eighth Amendment's proscription of excessive bail has been assumed to have application to the States through the Fourteenth Amendment." In McDonald v. City of Chicago, the right against excessive bail was included in a footnote listing incorporated rights.
Excessive fines
''Waters-Pierce Oil Co. v. Texas''
In Waters-Pierce Oil Co. v. Texas,, the Supreme Court held that excessive fines are those that are "so grossly excessive as to amount to a deprivation of property without due process of law". The Court wrote in its syllabus:The Court further stated in its opinion:
In essence, the government must not be able to confiscate such a large amount of property without following an established set of rules created by the legislature.
''Browning-Ferris v. Kelco''
In Browning-Ferris Industries of Vermont, Inc. v. Kelco Disposal, Inc.,, the Supreme Court ruled that the Excessive Fines Clause does not apply "when the government neither has prosecuted the action nor has any right to receive a share of the damages awarded". While punitive damages in civil cases are not covered by the Excessive Fines Clause, such damages were held to be covered by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, notably in State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co. v. Campbell,.''Austin v. United States''
In Austin v. United States, the Supreme Court ruled that the Excessive Fines Clause does apply to civil asset forfeiture actions taken by the federal government, in the specific case, the government's seizure of the petitioner's auto body shop on the bases of one charge of drug possession for which he had served seven years in prison.''United States v. Bajakajian''
In United States v. Bajakajian,, the Supreme Court ruled that it was unconstitutional to confiscate $357,144 from Hosep Bajakajian, who had failed to report possession of over $10,000 while leaving the United States. In what was the first case in which the Supreme Court ruled that a fine violated the Excessive Fines Clause, the Court held that it was "grossly disproportional" to take all the money Mr. Bajakajian had attempted to take out of the United States in violation of a federal law that required that he report an amount in excess of $10,000. In describing what constituted "gross disproportionality", the Court could not find any guidance from the history of the Excessive Fines Clause, and so relied on Cruel and Unusual Punishment Clause case law:Thus the Court declared that, within the context of judicial deference to the legislature's power to set punishments, a fine would not offend the Eighth Amendment unless it were "grossly disproportional to the gravity of a defendant's offense".
''Timbs v. Indiana''
In Timbs v. Indiana the Supreme Court ruled that the Excessive Fines Clause applies to state and local governments under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The case involves the use of civil asset forfeiture to seize a $42,000 vehicle under state law in addition to the imposition of a $1,200 fine for drug trafficking charges, house arrest, and probation.Cruel and unusual punishments
The Constitution was amended to prohibit cruel and unusual punishments as part of the United States Bill of Rights as a result of objections raised by people such as Abraham Holmes and Patrick Henry. While Holmes feared the establishment of the Inquisition in the United States, Henry was concerned with the application of torture as a way of extracting confessions. They also feared that the federal government would misuse its powers to create federal crimes as well as to punish those who committed them under the new Constitution and thus use these powers as a way to oppress the people. Abraham Holmes, a member of the Massachusetts Ratifying Convention for the federal constitution, for example noted in a letter from January 30, 1788 that the new Constitution would give the U.S. Congress the power "to ascertain, point out, and determine, what kind of punishments shall be inflicted on persons convicted of crimes." He added with respect those who would belong to the new government under the new Constitution: "They are nowhere restrained from inventing the most cruel and unheard-of punishments, and annexing them to crimes; and there is no constitutional check on them, but that racks and gibbets may be amongst the most mild instruments of their discipline." According to the Supreme Court, the Eighth Amendment forbids some punishments entirely, and forbids some other punishments that are excessive when compared to the crime, or compared to the competence of the perpetrator.In Louisiana ex rel. Francis v. Resweber,, the Supreme Court assumed arguendo that the Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause applied to the states through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. In Robinson v. California,, the Court ruled that it did apply to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment. Robinson was the first case in which the Supreme Court applied the Eighth Amendment against the state governments through the Fourteenth Amendment. Before Robinson, the Eighth Amendment had been applied previously only in cases against the federal government.
Justice Potter Stewart's opinion for the Robinson Court held that "infliction of cruel and unusual punishment is in violation of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments." The framers of the Fourteenth Amendment, such as John Bingham, had discussed this subject:
In Furman v. Georgia,, Justice Brennan wrote, "There are, then, four principles by which we may determine whether a particular punishment is 'cruel and unusual'."
- The "essential predicate" is "that a punishment must not by its severity be degrading to human dignity," especially torture.
- "A severe punishment that is obviously inflicted in wholly arbitrary fashion."
- "A severe punishment that is clearly and totally rejected throughout society."
- "A severe punishment that is patently unnecessary."
Justice Brennan also wrote that he expected no state would pass a law obviously violating any one of these principles, so court decisions regarding the Eighth Amendment would involve a "cumulative" analysis of the implication of each of the four principles. In this way, the United States Supreme Court "set the standard that a punishment would be cruel and unusual it was too severe for the crime, it was arbitrary, if it offended society's sense of justice, or if it was not more effective than a less severe penalty."
Punishments forbidden regardless of the crime
In Wilkerson v. Utah,, the Supreme Court commented that drawing and quartering, public dissection, burning alive, or disembowelment constituted cruel and unusual punishment. In Robinson v. California,, the Court further said "historic punishments that were cruel and unusual included "burning at the stake, crucifixion, breaking on the wheel", quartering, the rack and thumbscrew, and, in some circumstances, even solitary confinement." In Thompson v. Oklahoma,, the Supreme Court ruled that the death penalty constituted cruel and unusual punishment if the defendant is under age 16 when the crime was committed. Furthermore, in Roper v. Simmons,, the Court barred the executing of people who were under age 18 when the crime was committed. In Atkins v. Virginia,, the Court declared that executing people who are mentally handicapped constituted cruel and unusual punishment.Punishments forbidden for certain crimes
The case of Weems v. United States,, marked the first time the Supreme Court exercised judicial review to overturn a criminal sentence as cruel and unusual. The Court overturned a punishment called cadena temporal, which mandated "hard and painful labor", shackling for the duration of incarceration, and permanent civil disabilities. This case is often viewed as establishing a principle of proportionality under the Eighth Amendment. However, others have written that "it is hard to view Weems as announcing a constitutional requirement of proportionality."In Trop v. Dulles,, the Supreme Court held that punishing a natural-born citizen for a crime by revoking his citizenship is unconstitutional, being "more primitive than torture" because it involved the "total destruction of the individual's status in organized society".
In Robinson v. California,, the Court decided a California law authorizing a 90-day jail sentence for "be addicted to the use of narcotics" violated the Eighth Amendment, as narcotics addiction "is apparently an illness", and California was attempting to punish people based on the state of this illness, rather than for any specific act. The Court wrote:
However, in Powell v. Texas,, the Court upheld a statute barring public intoxication by distinguishing Robinson on the basis that Powell dealt with a person who was drunk in public, not merely for being addicted to alcohol.
Traditionally, the length of a prison sentence was not subject to scrutiny under the Eighth Amendment, regardless of the crime for which the sentence was imposed. It was not until the case of Solem v. Helm,, that the Supreme Court held that incarceration, standing alone, could constitute cruel and unusual punishment if it were "disproportionate" in duration to the offense. The Court outlined three factors that were to be considered in determining if a sentence is excessive: " the gravity of the offense and the harshness of the penalty; the sentences imposed on other criminals in the same jurisdiction; and the sentences imposed for commission of the same crime in other jurisdictions." The Court held that in the circumstances of the case before it and the factors to consider, a sentence of life imprisonment without parole for cashing a $100 check on a closed account was cruel and unusual.
However, in Harmelin v. Michigan,, a fractured Court retreated from the Solem test and held that for non-capital sentences, the Eighth Amendment constrains only the length of prison terms by a "gross disproportionality principle". Under this principle, the Court sustained a mandatory sentence of life without parole imposed for possession of 672 grams or more of cocaine. The Court acknowledged that a punishment could be cruel but not unusual, and therefore not prohibited by the Constitution. Additionally, in Harmelin, Justice Scalia, joined by Chief Justice Rehnquist, said "the Eighth Amendment contains no proportionality guarantee," and that "what was 'cruel and unusual' under the Eighth Amendment was to be determined without reference to the particular offense." Scalia wrote "If 'cruel and unusual punishments' included disproportionate punishments, the separate prohibition of disproportionate fines would have been entirely superfluous." Moreover, "There is little doubt that those who framed, proposed, and ratified the Bill of Rights were aware of such provisions , yet chose not to replicate them."
In Graham v. Florida, 560 U.S. , the Supreme Court declared that a life sentence without any chance of parole, for a crime other than murder, is cruel and unusual punishment for a minor. Two years later, in Miller v. Alabama,, the Court went further, holding that mandatory life sentences without parole cannot be imposed on minors, even for homicide.
Death penalty for rape
In Coker v. Georgia,, the Court declared that the death penalty was unconstitutionally excessive for rape of a woman and, by implication, for any crime where a death does not occur. The majority in Coker stated that "death is indeed a disproportionate penalty for the crime of raping an adult woman." The dissent countered that the majority "takes too little account of the profound suffering the crime imposes upon the victims and their loved ones". The dissent also characterized the majority as "myopic" for considering legal history of only "the past five years".In Kennedy v. Louisiana,, the Court extended the reasoning of Coker by ruling that the death penalty was excessive for child rape "where the victim's life was not taken". The Supreme Court failed to note a federal law, which applies to military court-martial proceedings, providing for the death penalty in cases of child rape. On October 1, 2008, the Court declined to reconsider its opinion in this case, but did amend the majority and dissenting opinions to acknowledge that federal law. Justice Scalia wrote in dissent that "the proposed Eighth Amendment would have been laughed to scorn if it had read 'no criminal penalty shall be imposed which the Supreme Court deems unacceptable.'"
Special procedures for death penalty cases
The first significant general challenge to capital punishment that reached the Supreme Court was the case of Furman v. Georgia,. The Supreme Court overturned the death sentences of Furman for murder, as well as two other defendants for rape. Of the five justices voting to overturn the death penalty, two found that capital punishment was unconstitutionally cruel and unusual, while three found that the statutes at issue were implemented in a random and capricious fashion, discriminating against blacks and the poor. Furman v. Georgia did not hold—even though it is sometimes claimed that it did—that capital punishment is unconstitutional.States with capital punishment rewrote their laws to address the Supreme Court's decision, and the Court then revisited the issue in a murder case: Gregg v. Georgia,. In Gregg, the Court ruled that Georgia's revised death penalty laws passed Eighth Amendment scrutiny: the statutes provided a bifurcated trial in which guilt and sentence were determined separately; and, the statutes provided for "specific jury findings" followed by state supreme court review comparing each death sentence "with the sentences imposed on similarly situated defendants to ensure that the sentence of death in a particular case is not disproportionate." Because of the Gregg decision, executions resumed in 1977.
Some states have passed laws imposing mandatory death penalties in certain cases. The Supreme Court found these laws unconstitutional under the Eighth Amendment, in the murder case of Woodson v. North Carolina,, because these laws remove discretion from the trial judge to make an individualized determination in each case. Other statutes specifying factors for courts to use in making their decisions have been upheld. Some have not: in Godfrey v. Georgia,, the Supreme Court overturned a sentence based upon a finding that a murder was "outrageously or wantonly vile, horrible, and inhuman", as it deemed that any murder may be reasonably characterized in this manner. Similarly, in Maynard v. Cartwright,, the Court found that an "especially heinous, atrocious or cruel" standard in a homicide case was too vague. However, the meaning of this language depends on how lower courts interpret it. In Walton v. Arizona,, the Court found that the phrase "especially heinous, cruel, or depraved" was not vague in a murder case, because the state supreme court had expounded on its meaning.
The Court has generally held that death penalty cases require extra procedural protections. As the Court said in Herrera v. Collins,, which involved the murder of a police officer, "the Eighth Amendment requires increased reliability of the process..."
Punishments specifically allowed
In Wilkerson v. Utah,, the Court stated that death by firing squad is not cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment.In Rummel v. Estelle,, the Court upheld a life sentence with the possibility of parole imposed per Texas's three strikes law for fraud crimes totaling $230. A few months later, Rummel challenged his sentence for ineffective assistance of counsel, his appeal was upheld, and as part of a plea bargain Rummel pled guilty to theft and was released for time served.
In Harmelin v. Michigan,, the Court upheld a life sentence without the possibility of parole for possession of 672 grams of cocaine.
In Lockyer v. Andrade,, the Court upheld a 50 years to life sentence with the possibility of parole imposed under California's three strikes law when the defendant was convicted of shoplifting videotapes worth a total of about $150.
In Baze v. Rees,, the Court upheld Kentucky's execution protocol using a three drugs cocktail.
In Glossip v. Gross, the Court upheld the use of lethal injections using the drug midazolam.
In Bucklew v. Precythe, the Court ruled that when a convict sentenced to death challenges the State's method of execution due to claims of excessive pain, the convict must show that other alternative methods of execution exist and clearly demonstrate they would cause less pain than the state-determined one.
Evolving standards of decency
In Trop v. Dulles,, Chief Justice Earl Warren said: "The Amendment must draw its meaning from the evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society." Subsequently, the Court has looked to societal developments, as well as looking to its own independent judgment, in determining what are those "evolving standards of decency".Originalists like Justice Antonin Scalia argue that societies may rot instead of maturing, and may decrease in virtue or wisdom instead of increasing. Thus, they say, the framers wanted the amendment understood as it was written and ratified, instead of morphing as times change, and in any event legislators are more competent than judges to take the pulse of the public as to changing standards of decency.
The "evolving standards" test is not without its scholarly critics as well. For example, Professor John Stinneford asserts that the "evolving standards" test misinterprets the Eighth Amendment:
On the other hand, Professor Dennis Baker defends the evolving standards of decency test as advancing the moral purpose of the Eighth Amendment to ban the inflicting of unjust, oppressive, or disproportional punishments by a state on its citizens.
Proportionality
The Court has applied evolving standards not only to say what punishments are inherently cruel, but also to say what punishments that are not inherently cruel are nevertheless "grossly disproportionate" to the offense in question. An example can be seen in Jackson v. Bishop, an Eighth Circuit decision outlawing corporal punishment in the Arkansas prison system: "The scope of the Amendment is not static...isproportion, both among punishments and between punishment and crime, is a factor to be considered..."Professor Stinneford asserts that the Eighth Amendment forbids punishments that are very disproportionate to the offense, even if the punishment by itself is not intrinsically barbaric, but Stinneford argues that "proportionality is to be measured primarily in terms of prior practice" according to the word "unusual" in the amendment, instead of being measured according to shifting and nebulous evolving standards. Stinneford argues that the word “unusual” in the Eighth Amendment has a very different meaning in comparison to those who use originalism to interpret the U.S. Constitution. He writes: "But in reality, the word “unusual” in the Eighth Amendment did not originally mean “rare”– it meant “contrary to long usage,” or “new.” A punishment is cruel and unusual if it is “cruel in light of long usage” – that is, cruel in comparison to longstanding prior practice or tradition." Similarly, Professor John Bessler points to "An Essay on Crimes and Punishments", written by Cesare Beccaria in the 1760s, which advocated proportionate punishments; many of the Founding Fathers, including Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, read Beccaria's treatise and were influenced by it.
Thus, Stinneford and Bessler disagree with the view of Justice Scalia, joined by Chief Justice Rehnquist, in Harmelin v. Michigan where they denied that the Punishments Clause contains any proportionality principle. With Scalia and Rehnquist, Richard Epstein argues that the amendment does not refer broadly to the imposition of penalties, but rather refers more narrowly to the penalties themselves; Epstein says judges who favor the broad view tend to omit the letter "s" at the end of the word "punishments".