Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution

In United States v. Salerno, 481 U.S. 739 (1987), 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, 342 U.S. 1 (1951),[19] 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.

[23] In Browning-Ferris Industries of Vermont, Inc. v. Kelco Disposal, Inc., 492 U.S. 257 (1989), 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".

Both of these principles counsel against requiring strict proportionality between the amount of a punitive forfeiture and the gravity of a criminal offense, and we therefore adopt the standard of gross disproportionality articulated in our Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause precedents.

See, e.g., Solem v. Helm, supra, at 288; Rummel v. Estelle, 445 U.S. 263, 271 (1980).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".

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.

[29] 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.

"[30] Relying on the history of the Eighth Amendment and its own caselaw the Supreme Court stated in Ingraham v. Wright (1977) that the Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause was designed to protect those convicted of crimes.

[33] 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."

Justice Brennan added: "The function of these principles, after all, is simply to provide [the] means by which a court can determine whether [the] challenged punishment comports with human dignity.

"[35] The plurality of the Supreme Court in Furman v. Georgia stated that the Eighth Amendment is not static, but that its meaning is interpreted in a flexible and dynamic manner to accord with, in the words of Trop v. Dulles, 356 U.S. 86 (1958), at page 101, "the evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society."

[36][37] In Miller v. Alabama, 567 U.S. 460 (2012), the Court explained that the Eighth Amendment "guarantees individuals the right not to be subjected to excessive sanctions", and that "punishment for crime should be graduated and proportioned to both the offender and the offense.

"[38] The Supreme Court has also looked to "the evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society" when addressing the prohibition on cruel and unusual punishments.

In Wilkerson v. Utah, 99 U.S. 130 (1878), the Supreme Court commented that drawing and quartering, public dissection, burning alive, or disembowelment constituted cruel and unusual punishment.

[43][a] Relying on Eighth Amendment case law Justice William O. Douglas stated in his Robinson v. California, 370 U.S. 660 (1962) concurrence opinion that "historic punishments that were cruel and unusual included "burning at the stake, crucifixion, breaking on the wheel" (In re Kemmler, 136 U. S. 436, 136 U. S. 446), quartering, the rack and thumbscrew (see Chambers v. Florida, 309 U. S. 227, 309 U. S. 237), and, in some circumstances, even solitary confinement (see In re Medley, 134 U. S. 160, 134 U. S.

"[45] In Thompson v. Oklahoma, 487 U.S. 815 (1988), 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.

The case of Weems v. United States, 217 U.S. 349 (1910), marked the first time the Supreme Court exercised judicial review to overturn a criminal sentence as cruel and unusual.

[46] The Court overturned a punishment called cadena temporal, which mandated "hard and painful labor", shackling for the duration of incarceration, and permanent civil disabilities.

"[48] In Trop v. Dulles, 356 U.S. 86 (1958), 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".

It was not until the case of Solem v. Helm, 463 U.S. 277 (1983), 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 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, 501 U.S. 957 (1991), 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".

In Graham v. Florida, 560 U.S. 48 (2010), 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.

[55] 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.

[64] In Rummel v. Estelle, 445 U.S. 263 (1980),[65] the Court upheld a life sentence with the possibility of parole imposed per Texas's three strikes law for fraud crimes totaling $230.

[71][72] In Lockyer v. Andrade, 538 U.S. 63 (2003),[73] 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.

"[86] In Trop v. Dulles, 356 U.S. 86 (1958), Chief Justice Earl Warren said: "The [Eighth] Amendment must draw its meaning from the evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society."

[87] In Kennedy v. Louisiana (2008) the Supreme Court stated: "Evolving standards of decency must embrace and express respect for the dignity of the person, and the punishment of criminals must conform to that rule.

For example, law professor John Stinneford asserts that the "evolving standards" test misinterprets the Eighth Amendment: The Framers of the Bill of Rights understood the word "unusual" to mean "contrary to long usage."

[91]On the other hand, law 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.