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Stephen has taught history, journalism, sociology, and political science courses at multiple levels, including the middle school, high school and college levels.
In 1994, Denis McGuire was convicted of the rape and murder of a 22-year-old pregnant woman. For his crime, he received the death sentence in the Ohio State Prison. In January of 2014, he was executed by the state of Ohio using a new combination of lethal drugs that were untested. During his execution, McGuire's body convulsed for 20 minutes, and his breathing was heavy as he obviously appeared to slowly be suffocating.
The question arises then, did McGuire's execution, which many observers described as disturbing, constitute a break of the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution? The Eighth Amendment of the Constitution states:
'Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.'
The amendment is meant to safeguard Americans against excessive punishments. The vagueness of its wording, however, has become a major issue of debate and interpretation in the Supreme Court. When is bail excessive? When have fines become excessive? What constitutes a cruel and unusual punishment? When can the death penalty be applied? Do state courts have to apply the Eighth Amendment also? These questions have all arisen and have required the Supreme Court to interpret them.
The framers of the Constitution borrowed the Eighth Amendment almost word-for-word from English common law. The English common law version began after the trial of Titus Oates. Oates was a gossip and had developed a reputation of falsely accusing people. Sometimes people were even executed because of his lies. The king of England wanted to make an example out of Oates to dissuade others from lying in court.
Every year, Oates would be tied to a post in public and whipped brutally for two straight days, and then tied to a mobile cart where he was whipped across town for one more day. The brutality of the punishment was so harsh that Parliament passed a law urging that such violent punishments no longer be inflicted by the king.
The historical tradition started by the Oates case in England deeply influenced the framers of the Constitution. George Mason and Patrick Henry proposed the Eighth Amendment to make sure that Congress could not impose harsh punishments for crime. It passed as part of the original Bill of Rights.
If you ever watch the show Law and Order, you know that one of the recurring fights between prosecutors and defense attorneys is how much the defendant's bail should be set at. The prosecutor always asks for bail to be set high, and the defense attorney always objects. The source of this dramatic moment is actually the Eighth Amendment.
According to the Constitution, a criminal justice court cannot charge excessive bail. But, what does that mean? This came under question in Stack v. Boyle (1951). In this case, the Supreme Court said that bail should be determined by two things: how much money a defendant has and how likely a person is to flee before trial. Thus, if a defendant is richer, he or she should expect to pay more money to be released. This does not mean, however, that a person accused of a serious crime will be released on bail. In such cases, they can be held until they are no longer deemed a threat to public security.
Don't you just hate speeding tickets? Sometimes, the fines on the ticket seem just excessive! Despite your own personal opinion, it is very unlikely that the Supreme Court will overturn your fine as excessive. That is because the Court has only overturned an excessive fine once in its long history.
The standard for overturning a fine was set in 1909 when the Court heard Waters-Pierce Oil Co. v. Texas. In this case, the Court determined that a fine would only be excessive if it resulted in deprivation of property without due process of law. In other words, a fine is only excessive if there is not a pre-existing law specifying the nature of the fine, and the fine is so excessive that it takes away a person's property. Such strict limitations have made it difficult for anyone to have his or her fines ruled unconstitutional.
The only Supreme Court case where a fine has been deemed unconstitutional was in U.S. v. Bajakajian. Here, the Supreme Court ruled that the fine ($357,144) for not declaring money over $10,000 that was taken out of the country was excessive because it amounted to all the money that the defendant tried to take out. Thus, the fine has to 'be grossly disproportional to the offense' to be unconstitutional.
The Death Penalty Freeze: Furman v. Georgia (1972)
Perhaps the most controversial issue in which the Eighth Amendment comes into play is the death penalty. This was highlighted by a famous Supreme Court case, Furman v. Georgia. William Henry Furman was convicted of killing a resident of a Georgia home during a robbery. Furman's conviction was mainly based on his own confession in which he said the gun went off accidentally. Furthermore, there is some evidence that Furman was mentally challenged. After just a one-day trial, Furman was convicted and sentenced to death.
Furman's attorneys appealed to the Supreme Court, arguing that his conviction was cruel and unusual. In 1972, the Court overturned his conviction on a five-four decision, but there was no definitive consensus among the five consenting judges. Some of the judges believed that the death penalty was outlawed outright by the Eighth Amendment. Others believed that the death penalty was not outlawed, but that the death penalty was being applied arbitrarily and capriciously in this case.
The Supreme Court was particularly concerned that African Americans and the poor were getting the death penalty more often than whites. Because of Furman v. Georgia, there was a momentary break in which death penalty convictions were not allowed in the United States until states could prove that the death penalty was not being given out randomly or in a biased manner. It was as if the Supreme Court had all of the sudden said 'Freeze!' on giving the death penalty.
Gregg v. Georgia
The temporary freeze on death penalty cases ended four years later after the case of Gregg v. Georgia. Troy Leon Gregg was convicted of murdering two men who gave him a ride. He was given the death penalty. When the defendants asked the Supreme Court to hear their case, they hoped that the Court would rule that the death penalty was completely banned on the basis of the Eighth Amendment.
After ruling in the Furman case, many states created procedures for giving the death penalty in their state statutes. The procedures included having separate trials and sentencing periods, having more death penalty cases decided by jurors, and establishing criteria for when a crime was heinous enough to receive the death penalty and when it was not severe enough to receive the penalty. Despite the hopes of the defendants, the Supreme Court ruled that these procedures were good enough and, thus, lifted the freeze on death penalty executions. Interestingly, Troy Leon Gregg escaped from prison the night before his execution only to get in a bar fight and be killed the same night.
Robinson v. California
One major issue that has arisen from the Eighth Amendment was whether states are allowed to inflict cruel and unusual punishment. Originally, the Constitution did not stop states from instituting cruel and unusual punishments. But in Robinson v. California, the Court ruled that the Fourteenth Amendment, which required that states provide equal protection under the law, meant that the Eighth Amendment applied to state courts also.
No government can apply any form of major bodily punishment, such as public dissection, disemboweling, cutting of bodies into quarters, or other forms of bodily torture. Likewise, the Court has ruled that those under 18 and those that are legally mentally challenged cannot be subject to the death penalty. The Supreme Court has also ruled that an individual cannot be sentenced to death only for a rape. A murder has to be committed alongside the crime.
The Eighth Amendment of the Constitution states:
'Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.'
The amendment is meant to safeguard Americans against excessive punishments. The vagueness of its wording, however, has become a major issue of debate and interpretation in the Supreme Court. Particularly, the amendment has come into question when discussing the death penalty and how bail is set.
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