produkty: Harmelin v. Michigan

Evidence: 91 • authority: 72

Harmelin v. Michigan, 501 U.S. 957 (1991), was a case decided by the Supreme Court of the United States under the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The Court ruled that the Eighth Amendment's Cruel and Unusual Punishment Clause allowed a state to impose a life sentence without the possibility of parole for the possession of 672 grams (23.70 oz) of cocaine. The Court's narrow ruling left a major question of Eighth Amendment law unresolved. Since the Court's decision in Gregg v. Georgia, the Court had incorporated a detailed proportionality analysis into the cruel and unusual punishment analysis required in capital cases. The defendant Ronald Harmelin directly asked the Cour…

Evidence: 45 • authority: 72

Ewing v. California, 538 U.S. 11 (2003), is one of two cases upholding a sentence imposed under California's three strikes law against a challenge that it constituted cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment. As in its prior decision in Harmelin v. Michigan, the United States Supreme Court could not agree on the precise reasoning to uphold the sentence. But, with the decision in Ewing and the companion case Lockyer v. Andrade, the Court effectively foreclosed criminal defendants from arguing that their non-capital sentences were disproportional to the crime they had committed. Ewing was represented in the Court by Quin Denvir. The Attorney General of California argu…

Evidence: 45 • authority: 72

The Eighth Amendment (Amendment VIII) to the United States Constitution protects against 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 and state governments 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…

Evidence: 35 • authority: 92

The brain in solitude: an (other) eighth amendment challenge to solitary confinement.. Solitary confinement is not cruel and unusual punishment. It is cruel and unusual if one or more of its accompanying material conditions result in a wanton and unnecessary infliction of pain upon an individual. This requirement is met when such conditions involve a "deprivation of basic identifiable human needs" to an extent that they inflict harm or create a "substantial risk of serious harm" and they are enacted with "deliberate indifference" by prison personnel. With limited exceptions, the Supreme Court and lower federal courts have perpetuated a narrow application of these standards. In particular, C…

Evidence: 35 • authority: 92

Conceptual and Scientific Defects in the Supreme Court's "Method of Execution" Jurisprudence.. The Eighth Amendment to the US Constitution prohibits the infliction of cruel and unusual punishments. However, no method of executing prisoners has ever been deemed by the Supreme Court to constitute Cruel and Unusual Punishment. Constitutional challenges to the dominant mode of executing prisoners today - lethal injection - are hobbled by a lack of clinical data that would reveal the likelihood this method might inflict gratuitous pain. Here, we assess the contemporary Eighth Amendment jurisprudence, including its legal and scientific limitations, and suggest modifications.. Authors: Dow DR, New…

Evidence: 35 • authority: 72

Lockyer v. Andrade, 538 U.S. 63 (2003), decided the same day as Ewing v. California (a case with a similar subject matter), held that there would be no relief by means of a petition for a writ of habeas corpus for a claim that a sentence imposed under California's three strikes law was an unconstitutionally disproportionate punishment prohibited by the Eighth Amendment's prohibition of cruel and unusual punishments. The decision weakened the applicability of proportionality review for prison sentences.

Evidence: 24 • authority: 72

Robinson v. California, 370 U.S. 660 (1962), is the first landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court in which the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution was interpreted to prohibit particular acts or conduct, as contrasted with prohibiting the use of a particular form of punishment for a crime. In Robinson, the Court struck down a California law that criminalized being addicted to narcotics.