Source: https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/217/349.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-25 05:14:56+00:00

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[217 U.S. 349, 351] Mr. A. S. Worthington for plaintiff in error.
[217 U.S. 349, 354] Assistant Attorney General Fowler and Solicitor General Hoyt for defendant in error.
In the 'complaint,' by which the prosecution was begun, it was charged that the plaintiff in error, 'a duly appointed, qualified, and acting disbursing officer of the Bureau of Coast Guard and Transportation of the United States Government of the Philippine Islands,' did, as such, 'corruptly, and with intent then and there to deceive and defraud the United States government of the Philippine Islands and its officials, falsify a public and official document, namely, a cash book of the captain of the port of Manilla, Philippine Islands, and the Bureau of Coast Guard and Transportation of the United States Government of the Philippine Islands,' kept by him as disbursing officer of that bureau. The falsification, which is alleged with much particularity, was committed by entering as paid out, 'as wages of employees of the lighthouse service [217 U.S. 349, 358] of the United States government of the Philippine Islands,' at the Capul lighthouse, of 204 pesos, and for like service at the Matabriga lighthouse of 408 pesos, Philippine currency. A demurrer was filed to the 'complaint,' which was overruled.
'3. The record does not show that the plaintiff in error was present when he was tried, or, indeed, that he was present in court at any time.
It is true that the distinctions raised are expressed in the statutes, and necessarily so. It would be difficult otherwise to provide for government where there is a paramount authority making use of subordinate instrumentalities. We have examples in the states of the Union and their lesser municipal divisions, and rights may flow from and to such lesser divisions. And the distinction in the Philippine statutes means no more than that, and, conforming to that, a distinction is clearly made in the information. Weems's official position is described as 'disbursing officer of the Bureau of Coast Guard and Transportation of the United States Government of the Philippine Islands.' There is no real uncertainty in this description, and whatever technical nicety of discrimination might have been insisted on at one time cannot now be, in view of the provisions of the Philippine Criminal Code of Procedure, which requires a public offense to be described in 'ordinary and concise language,' not necessarily in the words of the statute, 'but in such form as to enable a person of common understanding to know what is intended, and the court to pronounce indgment according to the right.' And it is further provided that 'no information or complaint is insufficient, nor can the trial, judgment, or other proceeding be affected, by reason of a defect in matter of form which does not tend to prejudice a substantial right of the defendant upon the merits' ( 10).
Carrington v. United States, 208 U.S. 1 , 52 L. ed. 367, 28 Sup. Ct. Rep. 203, is not in point. In [217 U.S. 349, 362] that case it was attempted to hold Carrington guilty of an offense as a civil officer for what he had done as a military officer. As he was the latter, he had not committed any offense under the statute. The first assignment of error is therefore not sustained.
It is objected on the other side that Paraiso v. United States, 207 U.S. 368 , 52 L. ed. 249, 28 Sup. Ct. Rep. 127, stands in the way. But the rule is not altogether controlled by precedent. It confers a discretion that may be exercised at any time, no matter what may have been done at some other time. It is true we declined to exercise it in Paraiso v. United States, but we exercised it in Wiborg v. United States, 163 U.S. 632, 658 , 41 S. L. ed. 289, 298, 16 Sup. Ct. Rep. 1127, 1197; Clyatt v. United States, 197 U.S. 207, 221 , 49 S. L. ed. 726, 731, 25 Sup. Ct. Rep. 429, and Crawford v. United States, 212 U.S. 183 , 53 L. ed. 465, 29 Sup. Ct. Rep. 260, 15 A. & E. Ann. Cas. 392. It may be said, however, that Paraiso v. United States is more directly applicable, as it was concerned with the same kind of a crime as that in the case at bar, and that it was contended there, as here, that the amount of fine and imprisonment imposed inflicted a cruel and unusual punishment. It may be that we were not sufficiently impressed with the importance of those contentions, or saw in the circumstances of the case no reason to exercise our right of review under rule 35. As we have already said, the rule is not a rigid one, and we have less reluctance to disregard prior examples in criminal cases than in civil cases, and less reluctance to act under it when rights are asserted which are of such high character as to find expression and sanction in the Constitution or Bill of Rights. And such rights are asserted in this case.
'Art. 42. Civil interdiction shall deprive the person punished, as long as he suffers it, of the rights of parental suthority, guardianship of person or property, participation in the family council, marital authority, it, of the rights of parental authority, the right to dispose of his own property by acts inter vivos. Those cases are excepted in which the laws explicitly limit its effects.
'1. That of fixing his domicil and giving notice thereof to the authority immediately in charge of his surveillance, not being allowed to change it without the knowledge and permission of said authority, in writing.
'2. To observe the rules of inspection prescribed.
'3. To adopt some trade, art, industry, or profession should he not have known means of subsistence of his own.
The penalty of perpetual absolute disqualification is the deprivation of office, even though it be held by popular election, the deprivation of the right to vote or to be elected to [217 U.S. 349, 365] public office, the disqualification to acquire honors, etc., and the loss of retirement pay, etc.
These provisions are attacked as infringing that provision of the Bill of Rights of the islands which forbids the infliction of cruel and unusual punishment. It must be confessed that they, and the sentence in this case, excite wonder in minds accustomed to a more considerate adaptation of punishment to the degree of crime. In a sense the law in controversy seems to be independent of degrees. One may be an offender against it, as we have seen, though he gain nothing and injure nobody. It has, however, some human indulgence,-it is not exactly Draconian in uniformity. Though it starts with a severe penalty, between that and the maximum penalty it yields something to extenuating circumstances. Indeed, by article 96 of the Penal Code the penalty is declared to be 'divisible,' and the legal term of its 'duration is understood as distributed into three parts, forming the three degrees,-that is, the minimum, medium, and maximum,'-being respectively twelve years and one day to fourteen years and eight months; from fourteen years, eight months, and one day to seventeen years and four months; from seventeen years, four months, and one day to twenty years. The law therefore allows a range from twelve years and a day to twenty years, and the government, in its brief, ventures to say that 'the sentence of fifteen years is well within the law.' But the sentence is attacked as well as the law, and what it is to be well within the law a few words will exhibit. The mimimum term of imprisonment is twelve years, and that, therefore, must be imposed for 'perverting the truth' in a single item of a public record, though there be no one injured, though there be no fraud or purpose of it, no gain or desire of it. Twenty years is the maximum imprisonment, and that only can be imposed for the perversion of truth in every item of an officer's accounts, whatever be the time covered and whatever fraud it conceals or tends to conceal. Between these two possible sentences, which seem to have no adaptable relation, or rather [217 U.S. 349, 366] in the difference of eight years for the lowest possible offense and the highest possible, the courts below selected three years to add to the minimum of twelve years and a day for the falsification of two items of expenditure, amounting to the sums of 408 and 204 pesos. And the fine and 'accessories' must be brought into view. The fine was 4,000 pesetas,-an excess also over the minimum. The 'accessories' we have already defined. We can now give graphic description of Weems's sentence and of the law under which it was imposed. Let us confine it to the minimum degree of the law, for it is with the law that we are most concerned. Its minimum degree is confinement in a penal institution for twelve years and one day, a chain at the ankle and wrist of the offender, hard and painful labor, no assistance from friend or relative, no marital authority or parental rights or rights of property, no participation even in the family council. These parts of his penalty endure for the term of imprisonment. From other parts there is no intermission. His prison bars and chains are removed, it is true, after twelve years, but he goes from them to a perpetual limitation of his liberty. He is forever kept under the shadow of his crime, forever kept within voice and view of the criminal magistrate, not being able to change his domicil without giving notice to the 'authority immediately in charge of his surveillance,' and without permission in writing. He may not seek, even in other scenes and among other people, to retrieve his fall from rectitude. Even that hope is taken from him, and he is subject to tormenting regulations that, if not so tangible as iron bars and stone walls, oppress as much by their continuity, and deprive of essential liberty. No circumstance of degradation is omitted. It may be that even the cruelty of pain is not omitted. He must bear a chain night and day. He is condemned to painful as well as hard labor. What painful labor may mean we have no exact measure. It must be something more than hard labor. It may be hard labor pressed to the point of pain. Such penalties for such offenses amaze those [217 U.S. 349, 367] who have formed their conception of the relation of a state to even its offending citizens from the practice of the American commonwealths, and believe that it is a precept of justice that punishment for crime should be graduated and proportioned to offense.
Among those rules was that which prohibited the infliction of cruel and unusual punishment. It was repeated in the act of July 1, 1902 [32 Stat. at L. 691, chap. 1369], providing for the administration of the affairs of the civil government in the islands, and this court said of it and of the instructions of the President that they were 'intended to carry to the Philippine Islands those principles of our government which the President declared to be established as rules of law for the maintenance of individual freedom.' The instructions of the President and the act of Congress found in nominal existence in the islands the Penal Code of Spain, its continuance having been declared by military order. It may be there was not and could not be a careful consideration of its provisions and a determination to what extent they accorded with or were repugnant to the 'great principles of liberty and law' which had been 'made the basis of our governmental system.' Upon the institution of the government of the commission, if not before, that consideration and determination necessarily came to the courts and are presented by this record.
What constitutes a cruel and unusual punishment has not been exactly decided. It has been said that ordinarily the terms imply something inhuman and barbarous,-torture and the like. McDonald v. Com. 173 Mass. 322, 73 Am. St. Rep. 293, 53 N. E. 874. The court, however, in that case, conceded the possibility 'that punishment in the state prison for a long term of years might be so disproportionate to the offense as to constitute a cruel and unusual punishment.' Other cases have selected certain tyrannical acts of the English monarchs as illustrating the meaning of the clause and the extent of its prohibition.
No case has occurred in this court which has called for an exhaustive definition. In Pervear v. Massachusetts, 5 Wall. 475, 18 L. ed. 608, it was decided that the clause did not apply to state but to national legislation. But we went further, and said that we perceive nothing excessive, or cruel, or unusual in a fine of $50 and imprisonment at hard labor in the house of correction for three months, which was imposed for keeping and maintaining, without a license, a tenement for the illegal sale and illegal keeping of intoxicating liquors. A decision from which no one will dissent.
That passage was quoted in Re Kemmler, 136 U.S. 436, 447 , 34 S. L. ed. 519, 524, 10 Sup. Ct. Rep. 930 and this comment was made: 'Punishments are cruel when they involve torture or a lingering death; but the punishment of death is not cruel, within the meaning of that word as used in the Constitution. It implies there something inhuman and barbarous, and something more than the mere extinguishment of life.' The case was an application for habeas corpus, and went off on a question of jurisdiction, this court holding that the 8th Amendment did not apply to state legislation. It was not meant in the language we have quoted to give a comprehensive definition of cruel and unusual [217 U.S. 349, 371] punishment, but only to explain the application of the provision to the punishment of death. In other words, to describe what might make the punishment of death cruel and unusual, though of itself it is not so. It was found as a fact by the state court that death by electricity was more humane than death by hanging.
The law writers are indefinite. Story, in his work on the Constitution, vol. 2, 5th ed. 1903, says that the provision 'is an exact transcript of a clause in the Bill of Rights framed at the revolution of 1688.' He expressed the view that the provision 'would seem to be wholly unnecessary in a free government, since it is scarcely possible that any department of such a government should authorize or justify such atrocious conduct.' He, however, observed that it was 'adopted as an admonition to all departments of the national department, to warn them against such violent proceedings as had taken place in England in the arbitrary reigns of some of the Stuarts.' For this he cites 2 Elliott's Debates, 345, and refers to 2 Lloyd's [217 U.S. 349, 372] Debates, 225, 226; 3 Elliott's debates, 345. If the learned author meant by this to confine the prohibition of the provision to such penalties and punishment as were inflicted by the Stuarts, his citations do not sustain him. Indeed, the provision is not mentioned except in 2 Elliott's Debates, from which we have already quoted. The other citations are of the remarks of Patrick Henry in the Virginia convention, and of Mr. Wilson in the Pennsylvania convention. Patrick Henry said that there was danger in the adoption of the Constitution without a Bill of Rights. Mr. Wilson considered that it was unnecessary, and had been purposely omitted from the Constitution. Both, indeed, referred to the tyranny of the Stuarts. Henry said that the people of England, in the Bill of Rights, prescribed to William, Prince of Orange, upon what terms he should reign. Wilson said that 'the doctrine and practice of a declaration of rights have been borrowed from the conduct of the people of England on some remarkable occasions; but the principles and maxims on which their government is constituted are widely different from those of ours.' It appears, therefore, that Wilson, and those who thought like Wilson, felt sure that the spirit of liberty could be trusted, and that its ideals would be represented, not debased, by legislation. Henry and those who believed as he did would take no chances. Their predominant political impulse was distrust of power, and they insisted on constitutional limitations against its abuse. But surely they intended more than to register a fear of the forms of abuse that went out of practice with the Stuarts. Surely, their jealousy of power had a saner justification than that. They were men of action, practical and sagacious, not beset with vain imagining, and it must have come to them that there could be exercises of cruelty by laws other than those which inflicted bodily pain or mutilation. With power in a legislature great, if not unlimited, to give criminal character to the actions of men, with power unlimited to fix terms of imprisonment with what accompaniments they might, what more potent instrument of cruelty [217 U.S. 349, 373] could be put into the hands of power? And it was believed that power might be tempted to cruelty. This was the motive of the clause, and if we are to attribute an intelligent providence to its advocates we cannot think that it was intended to prohibit only practices like the Stuarts', or to prevent only an exact repetition of history. We cannot think that the possibility of a coercive cruelty being exercised through other forms of punishment was overlooked. We say 'coercive cruelty,' because there was more to be considered than the ordinary criminal laws. Cruelty might become an instrument of tyranny; of zeal for a purpose, either honest or sinister.
Legislation, both statutory and constitutional, is enacted, it is true, from an experience of evils but its general language should not, therefore, be necessarily confined to the form that evil had theretofore taken. Time works changes, brings into existence new conditions and purposes. Therefore a principle, to be vital, must be capable of wider application than the mischief which gave it birth. This is peculiarly true of constitutions. They are not ephemeral enactments, designed to meet passing occasions. They are, to use the words of Chief Justice Marshall, 'designed to approach immortality as nearly as human institutions can approach it.' The future is their care, and provision for events of good and bad tendencies of which no prophecy can be made. In the application of a constitution, therefore, our contemplation cannot be only of what has been, but of what may be. Under any other rule a constitution would indeed be as easy of application as it would be deficient in efficacy and power. Its general principles would have little value, and be converted by precedent into impotent and lifeless formulas. Rights declared in words might be lost in reality. And this has been recognized. The meaning and vitality of the Constitution have developed against narrow and restrictive construction. There is an example of this in Cummings v. Missouri, 4 Wall. 277, 18 L. ed. 356, where the prohibition against ex post facto laws was given a more extensive application than what a minority of this court [217 U.S. 349, 374] thought had been given in Calder v. Bull, 3 Dall. 386, 1 L. ed. 648. See also Ex parte Garland, 4 Wall. 333, 18 L. ed. 366. The construction of the 14th Amendment is also an example, for it is one of the limitations of the Constitution. In a not unthoughtful opinion, Mr. Justice Miller expressed great doubt whether that Amendment would ever be held as being directed against any action of a state which did not discriminate 'against the negroes as a class, or on account of their race.' Slaughter House Cases, 16 Wall. 36, 81, 21 L. ed. 394, 410. To what extent the Amendment has expanded beyond that limitation need not be instanced.
In the cases in the state courts, different views of the provision are taken. In State v. Driver, 78 N. C. 423, 427, it was said that criminal legislation and its administration are so uniformly humane that there is seldom occasion for complaint. In that case, a sentence of the defendant for assault and battery upon his wife was imprisonment in the county jail for five years, and at the expiration thereof to give security to keep the peace for five, in the sum of $500, with sureties, was held to be cruel and unusual. To sustain its judgment, the court said that the prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment was not 'intended to warn against merely erratic [217 U.S. 349, 376] modes of punishment or torture, but applied expressly to 'bail,' 'fines' and 'punishments." It was also said that 'the earliest application of the provision in England was in 1689, the first year after the adoption of the Bill of Rights in 1688, to avoid an excessive pecuniary fine imposed upon Lord Devonshire by the court of King's bench. 11 How. St. Tr. 1354.' Lord Devonshire was fined $30,000 for an assault and battery upon Colonel Culpepper, and the House of Lords, in reviewing the case, took the opinion of the law Lords, and decided that the fine 'was excessive and exorbitant, against Magna Charta, the common right of the subject, and the law of the land.' Other cases have given a narrower construction, feeling constrained thereto by the incidences of history.
In Hobbs v. State, 133 Ind. 404, 18 L.R.A. 774, 32 N. E. 1019, the supreme court of Indiana expressed the opinion that the provision did not apply to punishment by 'fine or imprisonment or both, but such as that inflicted at the whipping post, in the pillory, burning at the stake, breaking on the wheel.' etc.
Many of the state cases which have been brought to our attention require no comment. They are based upon sentences of courts, not upon the constitutional validity of laws. The contentions in other cases vary in merit and in their justification of serious consideration. We have seen what the contention was in Hobbs v. State, supra. In others, however, there was more inducement to an historical inquiry. In Com. v. Wyatt, 6 Rand. (Va.) 694, the whipping post had to be justified and was justified. In comparison with the 'barbarities of quartering, hanging in chains, castration, etc.,' it was easily reduced to insignificance. The court in the latter case pronounced it 'odious, but not unusual.' Other cases have seen something more than odiousness in it, and have regarded it as one of the forbidden punishments. It is certainly as odious as the pillory, and the latter has been pro- [217 U.S. 349, 378] nounced to be within the prohibitory clause. Whipping was also sustained in Foote v. State (1882) 59 Md. 264, as a punishment for wife beating. And, it may be, in Aldridge v. Com. 2 Va. Cas. 447. The law considered was one punishing free negroes and mulattoes for grand larceny. Under the law, a free person of color could be condemned to be sold as a slave, and transported and banished beyond the limits of the United States. Such was the judgment pronounced on the defendant by the trial court, and, in addition, thirty-nine stripes on his bare back. The judgment was held valid on the ground that the Bill of Rights of the state was 'never designed to control the legislative right to determine ad libitum upon the adequacy of punishment, but is merely applicable to the modes of punishment.' Cooley, in his Constitutional Limitations, says that it may be well doubted if the right exist 'to establish the whipping post and the pillory in states where they were never recognized as instruments of punishment, or in states whose constitutions, revised since public opinion had banished them, have forbidden cruel and unusual punishment.' [7th ed. p. 472.] The clause of the Constitution, in the opinion of the learned commentators, may be therefore progressive, and is not fastened to the obsolete, but may acquire meaning as public opinion becomes enlightened by a humane justice. See Ex parte Wilson, 114 U.S. 417, 427 , 29 S. L. ed. 89, 92, 5 Sup. Ct. Rep. 935; Mackin v. United States, 117 U.S. 348, 350 , 29 S. L. ed. 909, 910, 6 Sup. Ct. Rep. 777.
In Hobbs v. State, supra, and in other cases, prominence is given to the power of the legislature to define crimes and their punishment. We concede the power in most of its exercises. We disclaim the right to assert a judgment against that of the legislature, of the expediency of the laws, or the right to oppose the judicial power to the legislative power to define crimes and fix their punishment, unless that power encounters in its exercise a constitutional prohibition. In such case, not our discretion, but our legal duty, strictly defined and imperative in its direction, is invoked. Then the legislative power is brought to the judgment of a power superior to it for the [217 U.S. 349, 379] instant. And for the proper exercise of such power there must be a comprehension of all that the legislature did or could take into account,- that is, a consideration of the mischief and the remedy. However, there is a certain subordination of the judiciary to the legislature. The function of the legislature is primary, its exercise fortified by presumptions of right and legality, and is not to be interfered with lightly, nor by any judicial conception of its wisdom or propriety. They have no limitation, we repeat, but constitutional ones, and what those are the judiciary must judge. We have expressed these elementary truths to avoid the misapprehension that we do not recognize to the fullest the wide range of power that the legislature possesses to adapt its penal laws to conditions as they may exist, and punish the crimes of men according to their forms and frequency. We do not intend in this opinion to express anything that contravenes those propositions.
Our meaning may be illustrated. For instance, in Territory v. Ketchum, 10 N. M. 718, 55 L.R.A. 90, 65 Pac. 169, a case that has been brought to our attention as antagonistic to our views of cruel and unusual punishments, a statute was sustained which imposed the penalty of death upon any person who should make an assault upon any railroad train, car, or locomotive, for the purpose and with the intent to commit murder, robbery, or other felony upon a passenger or employee, express messenger or mail agent. The supreme court of the territory discussed the purpose of the 8th Amendment, and expressed views opposed to those we announce in this opinion, but finally rested its decision upon the conditions which existed in the territory, and the circumstances of terror and danger which accompanied the crime denounced. So, also, may we mention the legislation of some of the states, enlarging the common-law definition of burglary, and dividing it into degrees, fixing a severer punishment for that committed in the nighttime from that committed in the daytime, and for arson of buildings in which human beings may be from arson of buildings which may be [217 U.S. 349, 380] vacant. In all such cases there is something more to give character and degree to the crimes then the seeking of a felonious gain, and it may properly become an element in the measure of their punishment.
From this comment we turn back to the law in controversy. Its character and the contence in this case may be illustrated by examples even better than it can be represented by words. There are degrees of homicide that are not punished so severely, nor are the following crimes: misprision of treason, inciting rebellion, conspiracy to destroy the government by force, recruiting soldiers in the United States to fight against the United States, forgery of letters patent, forgery of bonds and other instruments for the purpose of defrauding the United States, robbery, larceny, and other crimes. Section 86 of the Penal Laws of the United States, as revised and amended by the act of Congress of March 4, 1909 (35 Stat. at L. 1088, chap. 321, U. S. Comp. Stat. Supp. 1909, p. 1391), provides that any person charged with the payment of any appropriation made by Congress, who shall pay to any clerk or other employee of the United States a sum less than that provided by law, and require a receipt for a sum greater than that paid to and received by him, shall be guilty of embezzlement, and shall be fined in double the amount so withheld, and imprisoned not more than two years. The offense described has similarity to the offense for which Weems was convicted, but the punishment provided for it is in great contrast to the penalties of cadena temporal and its 'accessories.' If we turn to the legislation of the Philippine Commission we find that instead of the penalties of cadena temporal, medium degree ( fourteen years, eight months, and one day, to seventeen years and four months, with fine and 'accessories'), to cadena perpetua, fixed by the Spanish Penal Code for the falsification of bank notes and other instruments authorized by the law of the kingdom, it is provided that the forgery of or counterfeiting the obligations or securities of the United States or of the Philippine Islands shall be punished by a fine of not more than 10,000 pesos and by imprisonment of not more than [217 U.S. 349, 381] fifteen years. In other words, the highest punishment possible for a crime which may cause the loss of many thousand of dollars, and to prevent which the duty of the state should be as eager as to prevent the perversion of truth in a public document, is not greater than that which may be imposed for falsifying a single item of a public account. And this contrast shows more than different exercises of legislative judgment. It is greater than that. It condemns the sentence in this case as cruel and unusual. It exhibits a difference between unrestrained power and that which is exercised under the spirit of constitutional limitations formed to establish justice. The state thereby suffers nothing and loses no power. The purpose of punishment is fulfilled, crime is repressed by penalties of just, not tormenting, severity, its repetition is prevented, and hope is given for the reformation of the criminal.
It is suggested that the provision for imprisonment in the Philippine Code is separable from the accessory punishment, and that the latter may be declared illegal, leaving the former to have application. United States v. Pridgeon, 153 U.S. 48 , 38 L. ed. 631, 14 Sup. Ct. Rep. 746, is referred to. The proposition decided in that case was that 'where a court has jurisdiction of the person and of the offense, the imposition of a sentence in excess of what the law permits does not render the legal or authorized portion of the sentence void, but only leaves such portion of the sentence as may be in excess open to question and attack.' This proposition is not applicable to the case at bar. The imprisonment and the accessories were in accordance with the law. They were not in excess of it, but were positively required by it. It is provided in article 106, as we have seen, that those sentenced to cadena temporal shall labor for the benefit of the state; shall always carry a chain at the ankle, hanging from the wrist; shall be employed at hard and painful labor; shall receive no assistance whatsoever from without the penal institutions. And it is provided in article 56 that the penalty of cadena temporal shall include the accessory penalties.
In Re Graham, 138 U.S. 461 , 34 L. ed. 1051, 11 Sup. Ct. Rep. 363, it was recognized to be 'the [217 U.S. 349, 382] general rule that a judgment rendered by a court in a criminal case must conform strictly to the statute, and that any variation from its provisions, either in the character or the extent of punishment inflicted, renders the judgment absolutely void.' In Ex parte Karstendick, 93 U.S. 396, 399 , 23 S. L. ed. 889, 890, it was said: 'In cases where the statute makes hard labor a part of the punishment, it is imperative upon the court to include that in its sentence.' A similar view was expressed in Re Mills, 135 U.S. 263, 266 , 34 S. L. ed. 107, 108, 10 Sup. Ct. Rep. 762. It was recognized in United States v. Pridgeon and the cases quoted which sustained it.
The Philippine Code unites the penalties of cadena temporal, principal and accessory, and it is not in our power to separate them, even if they are separable, unless their independence is such that we can say that their union was not made imperative by the legislature. Employers' Liability Cases (Howard v. Illinois C. R. Co.) 207 U.S. 463 , 52 L. ed. 297, 28 Sup. Ct. Rep. 141. This certainly cannot be said of the Philippine Code, as a Spanish enactment, and the order putting it into effect in the islands did not attempt to destroy the unity of its provisions or the effect of that unity. In other words, it was put into force as it existed, with all its provisions dependent. We cannot, therefore, declare them separable.
The Philippine law made criminal the entry in a public record by a public official of a knowingly false statement. The [217 U.S. 349, 383] punishment prescribed for violating this law was fine and imprisonment in a penal institution at hard and painful labor for a period ranging from twelve years and a day to twenty years, the prisoner being subjected, as accessories to the main punishment, to carrying during his imprisonment a chain at the ankle, hanging from the wrist, deprivation during the term of imprisonment of civil rights, and subjection, besides, to perpetual disqualification to enjoy political rights, hold office, etc., and, after discharge, to the surveillance of the authorities. The plaintiff in error, having been convicted of a violation of this law, was sentenced to pay a small fine and to undergo imprisonment for fifteen years, with the resulting accessory punishments above referred to. Neither at the trial in the court of first instance nor in the supreme court of the Philippine Islands was any question raised concerning the repugnancy of the statute defining the crime and fixing its punishment to the provision of the Philippine Bill of Rights, forbidding cruel and unusual punishment. Indeed, no question on that subject was even indirectly referred to in the assignments of error filed in the court below for the purpose of this writ of error. In the brief of counsel, however, in this court, the contention was made that the sentence was void, because the term of imprisonment was a cruel and unusual one, and therefore repugnant to the Bill of Rights. Deeming this contention to be of such supreme importance as to require it to be passed upon, although not raised below, the court now holds that the statute, because of the punishment which it prescribes, was repugnant to the Bill of Rights, and therefore void, and for this reason alone reverses and remands with directions to discharge.
The Philippine Bill of Rights, which is construed and applied, is identical with the cruel and unusual punishment clause of the 8th Amendment. Because of this identity it is now decided that it is necessary to give to the Philippine Bill of Rights the meaning properly attributable to the provision on the same subject found in the 8th Amendment, as, in using the language of that Amendment in the statute, it is to be [217 U.S. 349, 384] presumed that Congress intended to give to the words their constitutional significance. The ruling now made, therefore, is an interpretation of the 8th Amendment, and announces the limitation which that Amendment imposes on Congress when exercising its legislative authority to define and punish crime. The great importance of the decision is hence obvious.
Of course, in every case where punishment is inflicted for the commission of crime, if the suffering of the punishment by the wrongdoer be alone regarded, the sense of compassion aroused would mislead and render the performance of judicial duty impossible. And it is to be conceded that this natural conflict between the sense of commiseration and the commands of duty is augmented when the nature of the crime defined by the Philippine law and the punishment which that law prescribes are only abstractly considered, since the impression is at once produced that the legislative authority has been severely exerted. I say only abstractly considered, because the first impression produced by the merely abstract view of the subject is met by the admonition that the duty of defining and punishing crime has never, in any civilized country, been exerted upon mere abstract considerations of the inherent nature of the crime punished, but has always involved the most practical consideration of the tendency at a particular time to commit certain crimes, of the difficulty of repressing the same, and of how far it is necessary to impose stern remedies to prevent the commission of such crimes. And, of course, as these considerations involve the necessity for a familiarity with local conditions in the Philippine Islands which I do not possess, such want of knowledge at once additionally admonishes me of the wrong to arise from forming a judgment upon insufficient data, or without a knowledge of the subject-matter upon which the judgment is to be exerted. Strength, indeed, is added to this last suggestion by the fact that no question concerning the subject was raised in the courts below or there considered; and therefore no opportunity was afforded those courts, presumably, at least, relatively familiar with the local [217 U.S. 349, 385] conditions, to express their views as to the considerations which may have led to the prescribing of the punishment in question. Turning aside, therefore, from mere emotional tendencies, and guiding my judgment alone by the aid of the reason at my command, I am unable to agree with the ruling of the court. As, in my opinion, that ruling rests upon an interpretation of the cruel and unusual punishment clause of the 8th Amendment, naver before announced, which is repugnant to the natural import of the language employed in the clause, and which interpretation curtails the legislative power of Congress to defind and punish crime by asserting a right of judicial supervision over the exertion of that power, in disregard of the distincition between the legislative and judicial department of the government, I deem it my duty to dissent and state my reasons.
To perform this duty requires at the outset a precise statement of the construction given by the ruling now made to the provision of the 8th Amendment. My inability to do this must, however, be confessed, because I find it impossible to fix with precision the meaning which the court gives to that provision. Not for the purpose of criticizing, but solely in order to indicate my perplexity on the subject, the reasons for my doubt are briefly given. Thus, to my mind, it appears as follows: First. That the court interprets the inhibition against cruel and unusual punishment as imposing upon Congress the duty of proportioning punishment according to the nature of the crime, and casts upon the judiciary the duty of determining whether punishments have been properly apportioned in a particular statute, and if not, to decline to enforce it. This seems to me to be the case, because of the reference made by the court to the harshness of the principal punishment (imprisonment), and its comments as to what it deems to be the severity, if not inhumanity, of the accessories which result from or accompany it, and the declaration in substance that these things offend against the just principle of proportioning punishment to the nature of the crime punished, stated to be a [217 U.S. 349, 386] fundamental precept of justice and of American criminal law. That this is the view now upheld, it seems to me, is additionally demonstrated by the fact that the punishment for the crime in question, as imposed by the Philippine law, is compared with other Philippine punishments for crimes deemed to be less heinous, and the conclusion is deduced that this fact, in and of itself, serves to establish that the punishment imposed in this case is an exertion of unrestrained power, condemned by the cruel and unusual punishment clause.
Second. That this duty of apportionment compels not only that the lawmaking power should adequately apportion punishment for the crimes as to which it legislates, but also further exacts that the performance of the duty of apportionment must be discharged by taking into view the standards, whether lenient or severe, existing in other and distinct jurisdictions; and that a failure to do so authorizes the courts to consider such standards in their discretion, and judge of the validity of the law accordingly. I say this because, although the court expressly declares in the opinion, when considering a case decided by the highest court of one of the territories of the United States, that the legislative power to define and punish crime committed in a territory, for the purpose of the 8th Amendment, is separate and distinct from the legislation of Congress, yet, in testing the validity of the punishment affixed by the law here in question, proceeds to measure it not alone by the Philippine legislation, but by the provisions of several acts of Congress punishing crime, and in substance declares such congressional laws to be a proper standard, and in effect holds that the greater proportionate punishment inflicted by the Philippine law over the more lenient punishments prescribed in the laws of Congress establishes that the Philippine law is repugnant to the 8th Amendment.
Third. That the cruel and unusual punishment clause of the 8th Amendment controls not only the exertion of legislative power as to modes of punishment, proportionate or otherwise, but addresses itself also to the mainspring of the [217 U.S. 349, 387] legislative motives in enacting legislation punishing crime in a particular case, and therefore confers upon courts the power to refuse to enforce a particular law defining and punishing crime, if, in their opinion, such law does not manifest that the lawmaking power, in fixing the punishment, was sufficiently impelled by a purpose to effect a frformation of the criminal. This is said because of the statements contained in the opinion of the court as to the legislative duty to shape legislation not only with a view to punish, but to reform the criminal, and the inferences which I deduce that it is conceived that the failure to do so is a violation of constitutional duty.
Fourth. That the cruel and unusual punishment clause does not merely limit the legislative power to fix the punishment for crime by excepting out of that authority the right to impose bodily punishments of a cruel kind, in the strict acceptation of those terms, but limits the legislative discretion in determining to what degree of severity an appropriate and usual mode of punishment may, in a particular case, be inflicted; and therefore endows the courts with the right to supervise the exercise of legislative discretion as to the adequacy of punishment, even although resort is had only to authorized kinds of punishment, thereby endowing the courts with the power to refuse to enforce laws punishing crime, if, in the judicial judgment, the legislative branch of the government has prescribed a too severe punishment.
Not being able to assent to these, as it to me seems, in some respects conflicting, or, at all events, widely divergent, propositions, I shall consider them all as sanctioned by the interpretation now given to the prohibition of the 8th Amendment, and with this conception in mind shall consider the subject.
Before approaching the text of the 8th Amendment to determine its true meaning, let me briefly point out why, in my opinion, it cannot have the significance which it must receive to sustain the propositions rested upon it. In the first place, if it be that the lawmaker, in defining and punishing crime, is imperatively restrained by constitutional provisions to apportion [217 U.S. 349, 388] punishment by a consideration alone of the abstract heinousness of the offenses punished, it must result that the power is so circumscribed as to be impossible of execution; or, at all events, is so restricted as to exclude the possibility of taking into account, in defining and punishing crime, all those considerations concerning the condition of society, the tendency to commit the particular crime, the difficulty of detecting the same, the necessity for resorting to stern measures of repression, and various other subjects which have, at all times, been deemed essential to be weighed in defining and punishing crime. And certainly the paralysis of the discretion vested in the lawmaking authority which the propositions accomplish is immeasurably magnified when it is considered that this duty of proportioning punishment requires the taking into account of the standards prevailing in other or different countries or jurisdictions, thereby at once exacting that legislation on the subject of crime must be proportioned not to the conditions to which it is intended to apply, but must be based upon conditions with which the legislation, when enacted, will have no relation or concern whatever. And when it is considered that the propositions go further, and insist that, if the legislation seems to the judicial mind not to have been sufficiently impelled by motives of reformation of the criminal, such legislation defining and punishing crime is to be held repugnant to constitutional limitations, the impotency of the legislative power to define and punish crime is made manifest. When to this result is added the consideration that the interpretation, by its necessary effect, does not simply cause the cruel and unusual punishment clause to carve out of the domain of legislative authority the power to resort to prohibited kinds of punishments, but subjects to judicial control the degree of severity with which authorized modes of punishment may be inflicted, it seems to me that the demonstration is conclusive that nothing will be left of the independent legislative power to punish and define crime, if the interpretation now made be pushed in future application to its logical conclusion. [217 U.S. 349, 389] But let me come to the 8th Amendment, for the purpose of stating why the clause in question does not, in my opinion, authorize the deductions drawn from it, and therefore does not sanction the ruling now made.
I shall consider the Amendment (a) as to its origin in the mother country, and the meaning there given to it prior to the American Revolution; (b) its migration and existence in the states after the Revolution, and prior to the adoption of the Constitution; (c) its incorporation into the Constitution, and the construction given to it in practice from the beginning to this time; and (d) the judicial interpretation which it has received, associated with the construction affixed, both in practice and judicially, to the same provision found in various state constitutions or Bills of Rights.
Without going into unnecessary historical detail, it is sufficient to point out, as did the court in Re Kemmler, 136 U.S. 436, 446 , 34 S. L. ed. 519, 524, 10 Sup. Ct. Rep. 930, 933, that 'the provision in reference to cruel and unusual punishments was taken from the well-known act of Parliament of 1688 [1689?], entitled 'An Act Declaring the Rights and Liberties of the Subject, and Settling the Succession of the Crown." And this act, it is to be observed, was but in regular form a crystallization of the Declaration of Rights of the same year. 3 Hallam, Const. Hist. p. 106. It is also certain, as declared in the Kemmler Case, that 'this Declaration of Rights had reference to the acts of the executive and judicial departments of the government of England,' since it but embodied the grievances which it was deemed had been suffered by the usurpations of the Crown and transgressions of authority by the courts. In the recitals both of the Declaration of Rights and the Bill of Rights, the grievances complained of were that illegal and cruel punishments had been inflicted, 'which are utterly and directly contrary to the known laws and statutes and freedom of this realm;' while in both the Declaration and the Bill of Rights the remedy formulated was a declaration against the infliction of cruel and unusual punishments.
Whatever may be the difficulty, if any, in fixing the mean- [217 U.S. 349, 390] ing of the prohibition at its origin, it may not be doubted, and indeed is not questioned by anyone, that the cruel punishments against which the Bill of Rights provided were the atrocious, sanguinary, and inhuman punishments which had been inflicted in the past upon the persons of criminals. This being certain, the difficulty of interpretation, if any, is involved in determining what was intended by the unusual punishments referred to and which were provided against. Light, however, on this subject, is at once afforded by observing that the unusual punishments provided against were responsive to and obviously considered to be the illegal punishments complained of. These complaints were, first, that customary modes of bodily punishments, such as whipping and the pillory, had, under the exercise of judicial discretion, been applied to so unusual a degree as to cause them to be illegal; and, second, that in some cases an authority to sentence to perpetual imprisonment had been exerted under the assumption that power to do so resulted from the existence of judicial discretion to sentence to imprisonment, when it was unusual, and therefore illegal, to inflict life imprisonment in the absence of express legislative authority. In other words, the prohibitions, although conjunctively stated, were really disjunctive, and embraced braced as follows: (a) Prohibitions against a resort to the inhuman bodily punishments of the past; (b) or, where certain bodily punishments were customary, a prohibition against their infliction to such an extent as to be unusual and consequently illegal; (c) or the infliction, under the assumption of the exercise of judicial discretion, of unusual punishments not bodily, which could not be imposed except by express statute, or which were wholly beyond the jurisdiction of the court to impose.
The scope and power of the guaranty as we have thus stated it will be found portrayed in the reasons assigned by the members of the House of Lords who dissented against two judgments for perjury entered in the King's bench against Titus Oates. 10 How. St. Tr. col. 1325. [217 U.S. 349, 391] The judgments and the dissenting reasons are copied in the margin.
'First, The court does order for a fine that you pay 1,000 marks upon each Indictment.
"Secondly, That you be stript of all your Canonical Habits.
"Thirdly, The Court does award, That you do stand upon the Pillory, and in the Pillory, here before Westminster-hall gate, upon Monday next, for an hour's time, between the hours of 10 and 12; with a paper over your head (which you must first walk with round about to all the Courts in Westminster-hall) declaring your crime.' And that is upon the first indictment.
"Fourthly (on the Second Indictment), upon Tuesday, you shall stand upon, and in the Pillory, at the Royal Exchange in London, for the space of an hour, between the hours of 12 and 2; with the same inscription.
"You shall upon the next Wednesday be whipped from Aldgate to Newgate.
'But, Mr. Oates, we cannot but remember, there were several particular times you swore false about; and therefore, as annual commemorations, that it may be known to all people as long as you live, we have taken special care of you for an annual punishment.
"Upon the 24th of April every year, as long as you live, you are to stand upon the Pillory and in the Pillory, at Tyburn, just opposite to the gallows, for the space of an hour, between the hours of 10 and 12.
"You are to stand upon, and in the Pillory, here at Westminster-hall gate, every 9th of August, in every year, so long as you live. And that it may be known what we mean by it, 'tis to remember, what he swore about Mr. Ireland's being in town between the 8th and 12th of August.
"You are to stand upon, and in the Pillory, at Charing-cross, on the 10th of August, every year, during your life, for an hour, between 10 and 12.
"The like over against the Temple gate, upon the 11th.
Dissenting statement of a minority of the House of Lords: [217 U.S. 349, 392] on the part of the House of Commons, made to that body concerning a bill to set aside the judgments against Oates above referred to (5 Cobbett's Parl. History, col. 386), proceeded upon the identity of what was deemed to be the illegal practices complained of, and which were intended to be rectified by the prohibition against cruel and unusual punishments, [217 U.S. 349, 393] made in the Declaration of Rights, and treated that prohibition, as already stated, as substantially disjunctive, and as forbidding the doing of the things we have above enumerated. See, for the disjunctive character of the provision, Stephen, Com. Law Eng. 15th ed. p. 379.
For the sake of brevity a review of the practises which prevailed in the colonial period will not be referred to. Therefore, attention is at once directed to the express guaranties in certain of the state constitutions adopted after the Declaration of Independence, and prior to the formation of the Constitution of the United States, and the circumstances connected with the subsequent adoption of the 8th Amendment.
The substantial identity between the provisions of these several constitutions or Bills of Rights shows beyond doubt that [217 U.S. 349, 395] their meaning was understood; that is to say, that the significance attributed to them in the mother country as the result of the Bill of Rights of 1689 was appreciated, and that it was intended, in using the identical words, to give them the same well-understood meaning. It is to be observed that the New Hampshire Bill of Rights contains a clause admonishing as to the wisdom of the apportionment of punishment of crime according to the nature of the offense, but in marked contrast to the re- enactment, in express and positive terms, of the cruel and unusual punishment clause of the English Bill of Rights, the provision as to apportionment is merely advisory, additionally demonstrating the precise and accurate conception then entertained of the nature and character of the prohibition adopted from the English Bill of Rights.
The ultimate recognition by Henry of the patriotic duty to ratify the Constitution and trust to the subsequent adoption of a Bill of Rights, the submission and adoption of the first ten Amendments as a Bill of Rights, which followed ratification, the connection of Mr. Madison with the drafting of the amendments, and the fact that the 8th Amendment is in the precise words of the guaranty on that subject in the Virginia Bill of Rights, would seem to make it perfectly clear that it was only intended by that Amendment to remedy the wrongs which had been provided against in the English Bill of Rights, and which were likewise provided against in the Virginia provision, and therefore was intended to guard against the evils so vividly portrayed by Henry in the debate which we have quoted. That this was the common understanding which must have existed on the subject is plainly to be inferred from the fact that the 8th Amendment was substantially submitted by Congress without any debate on the subject. 2 Lloyd's Debates, 225. Of course, in view of the nature and character of the government which the Constitution called into being, the incorporation of the 8th Amendment caused its provisions to operate a direct and controlling prohibition upon the legislative branch (as well as all other departments), restraining it from authorizing or directing the infliction of the cruel bodily punishments of the past, which was one of the evils sought to be prevented for the future by the English Bill of Rights, and also restrained the courts from exerting and Congress from empowering them, to select and exert by way of discretion modes of punishment which were not usual, or usual modes of punishment to a degree not usual, and which could alone be imposed by express authority of law. But this obvious result lends no [217 U.S. 349, 398] support to the theory that the adoption of the Amendment operated or was intended to prevent the legislative branch of the government from prescribing, according to its conception of what public policy required, such punishments, severe or otherwise, as it deemed necessary for the prevention of crime, provided, only, resort was not had to the infliction of bodily punishments of a cruel and barbarous character, against which the Amendment expressly provided. Not to so conclude is to hold that because the Amendment, in addition to depriving the lawmaking power of the right to authorize the infliction of cruel bodily punishments, had restricted the courts, where discretion was possessed by them, from exerting the power to punish by a mode or in a manner so unusual as to require legislative sanction, it thereby deprived Congress of the power to sanction the punishments which the Amendment forbade being imposed, merely because they were not sanctioned. In other words, that because the power was denied to the judiciary to do certain things without legislative authority, thereby the right on the part of the legislature to confer the authority was taken away. And this impossible conclusion would lead to the equally impossible result that the effect of the Amendment was to deprive Congress of its legitimate authority to punish crime, by prescribing such modes of punishment, even although not before employed, as were appropriate for the purpose.
And it is, I think, beyond power even of question that the legislation of Congress, from the date of the first crimes act to the present time, but exemplifies the truth of what has been said, since that legislation from time to time altered modes of punishment, increasing or diminishing the amount of punishment, as was deemed necessary for the public good, prescribing punishments of a new character, without reference to any assumed rule of apportionment, or the conception that a right of judicial supervision was deemed to obtain. It is impossible with any regard for brevity to demonstrate these statements by many illustrations. But let me give a sample from legislation enacted by Congress of the change of punishment. By 14 of the first crimes act (Act April 30, 1790, chap. 9, 1 Stat. at L. 115), forgery, etc., of the public securities of the United States, or the knowingly ut- [217 U.S. 349, 400] tering and offering for sale of forged or counterfeited securities of the United States with intent to defraud, was made punishable by death. The punishment now is a fine of not more than $5,000, and imprisonment at hard labor for not more than fifteen years. Rev. Stat. 5414, U. S. Comp. Stat. 1901, p. 3662.
By the first crimes act, also, as in numerous others since that time, various additional punishments for the commission of crime were imposed, prescribing disqualification to hold office, to be a witness in the courts, etc., and as late as 1865 a law was enacted by Congress which prescribed as a punishment for crime the disqualification to enjoy rights of citizenship. Rev. Stat. 1996-1998, U. S. Comp. Stat. 1901, p. 1269.
In Territory v. Ketchum, 10 N. M. 721, 55 L.R.A. 90, 65 Pac. 169, the court considered whether a statute which had recently been put in force, and which imposed the death penalty instead of a former punishment of imprisonment, for an attempt at train robbery, was cruel and unusual. In sustaining the validity of the law, the court pointed out the conditions of society which presumably had led the lawmaking power to fix the stern penalty, and after a lengthy discussion of the subject it was held that the law did not impose punishment which was cruel or unusual.
As to the Louisiana case, I content myself with saying that it, in substance, involved merely the question of error committed [217 U.S. 349, 409] by a magistrate in imposing punishment for many offenses when, under the law, the offense was a continuing and single one.
From all the considerations which have been stated, I can deduce no ground whatever which, to my mind, sustains the interpretation now given to the cruel and unusual punishment clause. On the contrary, in my opinion, the review which has been made demonstrates that the word 'cruel,' as used in the Amendment, forbids only the lawmaking power, in prescribing punishment for crime, and the courts in imposing punishment, from inflicting unnecessary bodily suffering through a resort to inhuman methods for causing bodily torture, like or which are of the nature of the cruel methods of bodily torture which had been made use of prior to the Bill of Rights of 1689, and against the recurrence of which the word 'cruel' was used in that instrument. To illustrate. Death was a well-known method of punishment, prescribed by law, and it was, of course, painful, and in that sense was cruel. But the infliction of this punishment was clearly not prohibited by the word 'cruel,' although that word manifestly was intended to forbid the resort to barbarous and unnecessary methods of bodily torture in executing even the penalty of death.
In my opinion, the previous considerations also establish that the word 'unusual' accomplished only three results: First, it primarily restrains the courts when acting under the authority of a general discretionary power to impose punishment, such as was possessed at common law, from inflicting lawful modes of punishment to so unusual a degree as to cause the punishment to be illegal, because to that degree it cannot be inflicted without express statutory authority; second, it restrains the courts in the exercise of the same discretion from inflicting a mode of punishment so unusual as to be impliedly not within its discretion, and to be consequently illegal in the absence of express statutory authority; and, third, as to both the foregoing, it operated to restrain the lawmaking power from endowing the judiciary with the right to exert an illegal [217 U.S. 349, 410] discretion as to the kind and extent of punishment to be inflicted.
Nor is it given to me to see in what respect the construction thus stated minimizes the constitutional guaranty by causing it to become obsolete or ineffective in securing the purposes which led to its adoption. Of course, it may not be doubted that the provision against cruel bodily punishment is not restricted to the mere means used in the past to accomplish the prohibited result. The prohibition, being generic, embraces all methods within its intendment. Thus, if it could be conceived that to- morrow the lawmaking power, instead of providing for the infliction of the death penalty by hanging, should command its infliction by burying alive, who could doubt that the law would be repugnant to the constitutional inhibition against cruel punishment? But while this consideration is obvious, it must be equally apparent that the prohibition against the infliction of cruel bodily torture cannot be extended so as to limit legislative discretion in prescribing punishment for crime by modes and methods which are not embraced within the prohibition against cruel bodily punishment, considered even in their most generic sense, without disregarding the elementary rules of construction which have prevailed from the beginning. Of course, the beneficent application of the Constitution to the ever-changing requirements of our national life has, in a great measure, resulted from the simple and general terms by which the powers created by the Constitution are conferred, or in which the limitations which it provides are expressed. But this beneficent result has also essentially depended upon the fact that this court, while never hasitating to bring within the powers granted or to restrain by the limitations created all things generically within their embrace, has also incessantly declined to allow general words to be construed so as to include subjects not within their intendment. That these great results have been accomplished through the application by the court of the familiar rule that what is generically included in the words [217 U.S. 349, 411] employed in the Constitution is to be ascertained by considering their origin and their significance at the time of their adoption in the instrument may not be denied,-Boyd v. United States, 116 U.S. 616, 624 , 29 S. L. ed. 746, 748, 6 Sup. Ct. Rep. 524; Kepner v. United States, 195 U.S. 100, 124 , 125 S., 49 L. ed. 114, 122, 123, 24 Sup. Ct. Rep. 797, 1 A. & E. Ann. Cas. 655,-rulings which are directly repugnant to the conception that by judicial construction constitutional limitations may be made to progress so as to ultimately include that which they were not intended to embrace,-a principle with which it seems to me the ruling now made is in direct conflict, since, by the interpretation now adopted, two results are accomplished: (a) the clause against cruel punishments, which was intended to prohibit inhumane and barbarous bodily punishments, is so construed as to limit the discretion of the lawmaking power in determining the mere severity with which punishments not of the prohibited character may be prescribed, and (b) by interpreting the word 'unusual,' adopted for the sole purpose of limiting judicial discretion in order thereby to maintain the supremacy of the lawmaking power, so as to cause the prohibition to bring about the directly contrary result; that is, to expand the judicial power by endowing it with a vast authority to control the legislative department in the exercise of its discretion to define and punish crime.
'1. For that the King's bench, being a temporal court, made it part of the judgment, that Titus Oates, being a clerk, should, for his said perjuries, be devested of his canonical and priestly habit, and to continue devested all his life; which is a matter wholly out of their power, belonging to the ecclesiastical courts only.
'2. For that the said judgments are barbarous, inhuman, and unchristian; and there is no precedents to warrant the punishments of whipping and committing to prison for life, for the crime of perjury; which yet were but part of the punishments inflicted upon him.
'3. For that the particular matters upon which the indictments were found were the points objected against Mr. Titus Oates's testimony in several of the trials, in which he was allowed to be a good and credible witness, though testified against him by most of the same persons, who witnessed against him upon those indictments.
'4. For that this will be an encouragement and allowance for giving the like cruel, barbarous, and illegal judgments hereafter, unless this judgment be reversed.
'5. Because Sir John Holt, Sir Henry Pollexfen, the two chief justices, and Sir Robert Atkins, chief baron, with six judges more (being all that were then present), for these and many other reasons, did, before us, solemnly deliver their opinions, and unanimously declare, That the said judgments were contrary to law and ancient practice, and therefore erroneous, and ought to be reversed.
[ Footnote 3 ] Cases decided in state and territorial courts of last resort, involving the question whether particular punishments were cruel and unusual: Ex parte Mitchell, 70 Cal. 1. 11 Pac. 488; People v. Clark, 106 Cal. 32, 39 Pac. 53; Fogarty v. State, 80 Ga. 450, 5 S. E. 782; Kelly v. State, 115 Ill. 683, 56 Am. Rep. 184, 4 N. E. 644; Hobbs v. State, 133 Ind. 404, 18 L.R.A. 774, 32 N. E. 1019; State v. Teeters, 97 Iowa, 458, 66 N. W. 754; Re Tutt, 55 Kan. 705, 41 Pac. 957; Cornelison v. Com. 84 Ky. 583, 608, 2 S. W. 235; Harper v. Com. 93 Ky. 290, 19 S. W. 737; State ex rel. Hohn v. Baker, 105 La. 378, 29 So. 940; Foote v. State, 59 Md. 264, 267; Com. v. Hitchings, 5 Gray, 482; McDonald v. Com. 173 Mass. 322, 73 Am. St. Rep. 293, 53 N. E. 874; Lurton v. Circuit Judge, 69 Mich. 610, 37 N. W. 701; People v. Morris, 80 Mich. 637, 8 L.R.A. 685, 45 N. W. 591; People v. Smith, 94 Mich. 644, 54 N. W. 487; People v. Whitney, 105 Mich. 622, 63 N. W. 765; Dummer v. Nungesser, 107 Mich. 481, 65 N. W. 564; People v. Huntley, 112 Mich. 569, 71 N. W. 178; State v. Williams, 77 Mo. 310; Ex parte Swann, 96 Mo. 44, 9 S. W. 10; State v Moore, 121 Mo. 514, 42 Am. St. Rep. 542, 26 S. W. 345; State v. Van Wye, 136 Mo. 227, 58 Am. St. Rep. 627, 37 S. W. 938; State v. Gedicke, 43 N. J. L. 86; Garcie v. Territory, 1 N. M. 415; State v. Apple, 121 N. C. 585, 28 S. E. 469; State ex rel. Larabee v. Barnes, 3 N. D. 319, 55 N. W. 883; State v. Becker, 3 S. D. 29, 51 N. W. 1018; State v. Hodgson, 66 Vt. 134, 28 Atl. 1089; State v. De Lano, 80 Wis. 259, 49 N. W. 808; State v. Fackler, 91 Wis. 418, 64 N. W. 1029; Re McDonald, 4 Wyo. 150, 33 Pac. 18.

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