Cadena temporal included imprisonment for at least 12 years and one day, in chains, at hard and painful labor; the loss of many basic civil rights; and subjection to lifetime surveillance.
Cadena temporal was among the penalties repealed in 1932 with the enactment of the Revised Penal Code of the Philippines.
They shall always carry a chain at the ankle, hanging from the wrists; they shall be employed at hard and painful labor, and shall receive no assistance whatsoever from without the institution.'
In Weems, the Supreme Court ruled this punishment to be "cruel and unusual" for a crime of "corruptly, and with intent then and there to deceive and defraud the United States government of the Philippine Islands and its officials, falsify[ing] a public and official document."
It thus paves the way to a modern interpretation of the Bill of Rights based on a new criterion: the "evolving standards of decency of a maturing society" designed by the Supreme Court in Trop v. Dulles, 356 U. S. 86 (1957) [citation needed].