How Have Courts Interpreted This? What Are the Legal Limits?
Under the 8th amendment to the U.S. Constitution, ratified as part of the original Bill of Rights in 1791, “cruel and unusual punishment” is prohibited in the United States. Foes of capital punishment have long argued that the death penalty qualifies as such, and the U.S. Supreme Court temporarily suspended executions in 1972 based on this argument. However, four years later, the Supreme Court clarified the earlier ruling, stating that the death penalty could be constitutional in certain circumstances. How has the court defined “cruel and unusual punishment”? Has the court established limits as to what may be considered cruel and unusual?
The Origins of the Ban on Cruel and Unusual Punishment
Though the prohibition was included in the U.S. Constitution, it was not a new idea. In fact, in 1689, some hundred years before the U.S. Bill of Rights, the English Parliament enacted the English Bill of Rights, which prohibited cruel and unusual punishment.
For more than a century after the ratification of the U.S. Bill of Rights, the 8th amendment was used primarily to prevent forms of torture or other barbarous acts of punishment. Historical examples of “cruel and unusual punishment” included stoning, disembowelment, boiling to death, drawing and quartering, execution via breaking wheel, impalement, starvation, and dismemberment. During that time, the focus of almost all interpretations of the 8th amendment was on its application to death penalty cases.
In 1910, though, the U.S. Supreme Court expanded the definition of cruel and unusual punishment, ruling that certain punishments considered excessive may be deemed cruel and unusual if they are disproportionate to the crime committed. Accordingly, the Supreme Court has considered the potential impact of the 8th amendment in cases involving:
- Whether the punishment fit the crime—the Supreme Court has held that the 8th amendment may be violated where the sentence or sanction is disproportionate to the crime. The court held that, when evaluating application of the 8th amendment, a court must look at the severity of the crime, harshness of the sanction, and sentences typically imposed on others convicted of the same offense.
- Non-homicide juvenile offenders—The Supreme Court has prohibited life imprisonment without parole in these cases.
- Prison beatings—The Supreme Court has banned these actions, unless they were done in a good faith effort to establish or restore discipline or order.
- Prison overcrowding—The Supreme Court found certain prison overcrowding in violation of the 8th amendment because it violated the prisoners’ rights to medical care.
In its historic 1972 ruling that temporarily banned the death penalty on grounds of cruel and unusual punishment, the court established four guidelines for punishment allowed by the 8th Amendment:
- The punishment must not be considered degrading to human dignity by a reasonable person;
- The punishment must not be imposed arbitrarily;
- The punishment must not be “patently unnecessary;” and
- The punishment must not be one that is rejected by society as a whole.
The death penalty per se is currently not considered cruel and unusual punishment; however, the Supreme Court has identified instances where it may rise to that level:
- Where the manner in which the execution is carried out inflicts unnecessary or wanton pain on the person being executed
- Where the intellectual disabilities of the criminal minimize their culpability
- Where the age of the criminal diminished their ability to understand the nature of the crime