Cruel and Unusual Punishment: Explaining the Eighth Amendment

The Eighth Amendment limits the punishments federal and state governments can impose on individuals charged with or convicted of crimes. The amendment prohibits excessive bail, excessive fines, and cruel and unusual punishment.

The Eighth Amendment is included in the Bill of Rights, the first 10 amendments to the Constitution which guarantee the basic civil rights and freedoms of Americans. A case involving a violation of these rights is typically handled by a civil rights lawyer who specializes in this area of law.

Excessive Bail

The Eighth Amendment prohibits excessive bail, the amount of money and property a defendant pledges to the court to ensure they will return for trial. Bail allows a defendant the freedom and ability to participate in preparing their defense.

Judges are supposed to consider the following factors when setting bail:

• The nature of the crime
• Amount of and quality of evidence against the accused
• Ability of the accused to pay the bail
• Possibility that the accused may flee if released

The concern about excessive bail is that it unfairly hampers poor defendants. The protection against excessive bail keeps judges from incarcerating accused individuals before a trial and imposing punishment before a conviction. It also supports the presumption that defendants are innocent until proven guilty.

If a defendant believes bail is excessive, they can file a motion for reduction of bail. If the motion is denied, a civil rights lawyer can apply to the Court of Appeals.

Excessive Fines

The Eighth Amendment also protects those convicted of crimes from excessive fines that take an amount of money or property that causes hardship and deprivation without due process of law. The excessive fines clause rests on the idea of proportionality. The fine must fit the crime. Actual amounts of fines or forfeitures must reflect the gravity of the crime. However, in determining proportionality, the facts of the case, the harm caused by the offense, and the character of the accused may also be considered.

Cruel and Unusual Punishment

The third part of the Eighth Amendment prohibits cruel and unusual punishment and is probably the most familiar because it’s often cited in arguments against the death penalty which many people oppose. Written near the end of the eighteenth century, the Amendment was aimed at ending torturous and horrific forms of retribution like whippings, drawing and quartering, beheading, and burning alive.

In the late 1950s, Chief Justice Earl Warren reset the discussion about cruel and unusual punishments when he wrote that the understanding of the clause should be shaped society’s evolving standards.

And things did evolve. The death penalty was subsequently found unconstitutional for the crime of rape and in cases involving defendants who are minors or intellectually disabled.

In 1972, the Supreme Court issued a 5-4 decision that struck down the death penalty in Furman V Georgia, a case involving a young Black defendant accused of murdering a homeowner during a home burglary. The justices’ decision found that the death penalty was unconstitutional because its application was random and discriminatory and had a disparate impact on minorities and the poor. The Court demanded reform. In the wake of Furman v Georgia, a majority of states overhauled their death penalty guidelines and procedures and the new rules and conditions reinstated and spared capital punishment.

The Eighth Amendment protection against cruel and unusual punishments also applies to prison conditions and sentences. Prison inmates cannot be denied basic necessities such as food, clothing, shelter, and critical medical care. Nor can they be subject to malicious use of force by correctional officers. And prison sentences should be proportional to the crime.

About the author:

Timothy Walton is a law school graduate and a freelance blogger with a knack for self-sufficiency. He also has three successful home business ideas under his belt. Currently, Timothy is working as a collaborative editor for Ben Crump Law. In his free time, when he is not strolling outside his lake house in rural Georgia with his two Labs, Rex and Lucilla, he is either trying his hand at writing a novel or daydreaming about his next nomadic adventure