Source: https://law.justia.com/constitution/us/amendment-08/14-proportionality.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-25 12:53:04+00:00

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In Robinson v. California248 the Court carried the principle to new heights, setting aside a conviction under a law making it a crime to “be addicted to the use of narcotics.” The statute was unconstitutional because it punished the “mere status” of being an addict without any requirement of a showing that a defendant had ever used narcotics within the jurisdiction of the state or had committed any act at all within the state’s power to proscribe, and because addiction is an illness that—however it is acquired— physiologically compels the victim to continue using drugs. The case could stand for the principle, therefore, that one may not be punished for a status in the absence of some act,249 or it could stand for the broader principle that it is cruel and unusual to punish someone for conduct that he is unable to control, which would make it a holding of far-reaching importance.250 In Powell v. Texas,251 a majority of the Justices took the latter view of Robinson, but the result, because of one Justice’s view of the facts, was a refusal to invalidate a conviction of an alcoholic for public drunkenness. Whether either the Eighth Amendment or the Due Process Clauses will govern the requirement of the recognition of capacity defenses to criminal charges remains to be decided.
The concept of proportionality also drove Justice Kagan’s analysis in Miller v. Alabama, a case questioning the imposition of mandatory life imprisonment without parole on juveniles convicted of homicide.277 Her analysis began by recounting the factors, stated in Roper and Graham, that mark children as constitutionally different from adults for purposes of sentencing: Children have diminished capacities and greater prospects for reform.278 Nevertheless, these factors, even when coupled with the severity of a life without parole sentence, did not lead Justice Kagan to bar life without parole for juveniles in homicide cases categorically.279 Her more immediate concern was that the mandatory life sentences in Miller left no room for a sentencer to consider a juvenile offender’s special immaturity, vulnerability, suggestibility, and the like.280 In Justice Kagan’s view, a process that mandates life imprisonment without parole for juvenile offenders is constitutionally ﬂawed because it forecloses any consideration of the hallmark distinctions of youth in meting out society’s severest penalties.281 In leading four Justices in dissent, Chief Justice Roberts observed that most states and the Federal Government have statutes mandating life sentences without parole for certain juvenile offenders in homicide cases, and that those mandated sentences are commonly imposed. These sentences simply are not “unusual,” nor does state law and practice indicate societal opprobrium toward them. Justice Kagan remained unconvinced, finding the dissent’s methodology less persuasive when the issue is the process that must be used in imposing a particular sentence as opposed to categorically barring a type of sentence altogether.
244 144 U.S. 323, 339–40 (1892). See also Howard v. Fleming, 191 U.S. 126, 135–36 (1903).
245 217 U.S. 349 (1910). The Court was here applying not the Eighth Amendment but a statutory bill of rights applying to the Philippines, which it interpreted as having the same meaning. Id. at 367.
246 217 U.S. at 381.
247 “The Eighth Amendment succinctly prohibits ‘excessive’ sanctions.” Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U.S. 304, 311 (2002) (applying proportionality review to determine whether execution of the mentally retarded is cruel and unusual). Proportionality in the context of capital punishment is considered under “Limitations on Capital Punishment: Proportionality,” supra.
248 370 U.S. 660 (1962).
249 A different approach to essentially the same problem was taken in Thompson v. Louisville, 362 U.S. 199, 206 (1960), which set aside a conviction for loitering and disorderly conduct as being supported by “no evidence whatever.” Cf. Johnson v. Florida, 391 U.S. 596 (1968) (no evidence that the defendant was “wandering or strolling around” in violation of vagrancy law).
251 392 U.S. 514 (1968). The plurality opinion by Justice Marshall, joined by Justices Black and Harlan and Chief Justice Warren, interpreted Robinson as proscribing only punishment of “status,” and not punishment for “acts,” and expressed a fear that a contrary holding would impel the Court into constitutional definitions of such matters as actus reus,mens rea, insanity, mistake, justification, and duress. Id. at 532–37. Justice White concurred, but only because the record did not show that the defendant was unable to stay out of public; like the dissent, Justice White was willing to hold that if addiction as a status may not be punished neither can the yielding to the compulsion of that addiction, whether to narcotics or to alcohol. Id. at 548. Dissenting Justices Fortas, Douglas, Brennan, and Stewart wished to adopt a rule that “[c]riminal penalties may not be inﬂicted upon a person for being in a condition he is powerless to change.” That is, one under an irresistible compulsion to drink or to take narcotics may not be punished for those acts. Id. at 554, 567.
252 445 U.S. 263 (1980).
253 In Hutto v. Davis, 454 U.S. 370 (1982), on the authority of Rummel, the Court summarily reversed a decision holding disproportionate a prison term of 40 years and a fine of $20,000 for defendant’s possession and distribution of approximately nine ounces of marijuana said to have a street value of about $200.
254 Rummel, 445 U.S. at 275–82. The dissent deemed these three factors to be sufficiently objective to apply and thought they demonstrated the invalidity of the sentence imposed. Id. at 285, 295–303.
255 463 U.S. 277 (1983). The case, like Rummel, was decided by a 5–4 vote.
256 463 U.S. at 284, 288.
257 The final conviction was for uttering a no-account check in the amount of $100; previous felony convictions were also for nonviolent crimes described by the Court as “relatively minor.” 463 U.S. at 296–97.
258 463 U.S. at 297.
259 463 U.S. at 297, 303.
260 463 U.S. at 292.
261 For a suggestion that Eighth Amendment proportionality analysis may limit the severity of punishment possible for prohibited private and consensual homosexual conduct, see Justice Powell’s concurring opinion in Bowers v. Hardwick, 478 U.S. 186, 197 (1986).
262 501 U.S. 957 (1991).
263 “Severe, mandatory penalties may be cruel, but they are not unusual in the constitutional sense.” 501 U.S. at 994. The Court’s opinion, written by Justice Scalia, then elaborated an understanding of “unusual”—set forth elsewhere in a part of his opinion subscribed to only by Chief Justice Rehnquist—that denies the possibility of proportionality review altogether. Mandatory penalties are not unusual in the constitutional sense because they have “been employed in various form throughout our Nation’s history.” This is an application of Justice Scalia’s belief that cruelty and unusualness are to be determined solely by reference to the punishment at issue, and without reference to the crime for which it is imposed. See id. at 975–78 (not opinion of Court—only Chief Justice Rehnquist joined this portion of the opinion). Because a majority of other Justices indicated in the same case that they do recognize at least a narrow proportionality principle (see id. at 996 (Justices Kennedy, O’Connor, and Souter concurring); id. at 1009 (Justices White, Blackmun, and Stevens dissenting); id. at 1027 (Justice Marshall dissenting)), the fact that three of those Justices (Kennedy, O’Connor, and Souter) joined Justice Scalia’s opinion on mandatory penalties should probably not be read as representing agreement with Justice Scalia’s general approach to proportionality.
264 Because of the “serious nature” of the crime, the three-Justice plurality asserted that there was no need to apply the other Solem factors comparing the sentence to sentences imposed for other crimes in Michigan, and to sentences imposed for the same crime in other jurisdictions. 501 U.S. at 1004. Dissenting Justice White, joined by Justices Blackmun and Stevens (Justice Marshall also expressed agreement on this and most other points, id. at 1027), asserted that Justice Kennedy’s approach would “eviscerate” Solem. Id. at 1018.
265 Ewing v. California, 538 U.S. 11 (2003).
266 538 U.S. at 29–30.
267 538 U.S. at 31.
268 538 U.S. at 32. The four dissenting Justices thought that the sentence was invalid under the Harmelin test used by the plurality, although they suggested that the Solem v. Helm test would have been more appropriate for a recidivism case. See 538 U.S. at 32, n.1 (opinion of Justice Stevens).
269 Lockyer v. Andrade, 538 U.S. 63 (2003). The three-strikes law had been used to impose two consecutive 25-year-to-life sentences on a 37-year-old convicted of two petty thefts with a prior conviction.
270 538 U.S. at 72.
271 560 U.S. ___, No. 08–7412, slip op. (2010).
272 Id. at 31. The opinion distinguishes life without parole from a life sentence. An offender need not be guaranteed eventual release under the Graham holding, just a realistic opportunity for release based on conduct during confinement.
273 See 543 U.S. 551 (2005). Concurring in the judgement in Graham, Chief Justice Roberts resolved the case under a proportionality test, finding the majority’s categorical restriction to be unwise and unnecessary in Graham’s circumstances. 560 U.S. ___, No. 08–7412, slip op. (Roberts, C.J., concurring).
274 560 U.S. ___, No. 08–7412, slip op. at 29.
275 For a parallel discussion in Roper, see 543 U.S. 551, 568–75 (2005).
276 In dissent, Justice Thomas, joined by Justice Scalia and, in part, by Justice Alito, questioned both the basis and the reach of the majority opinion. In addition to strongly objecting to adopting any categorical rule in a nonhomicide context, Justice Thomas pointedly criticized the conclusion that the legislative and judicial records established a consensus against imposing life without parole on juvenile offenders in nonhomicide cases. He also disparaged the majority’s independent judgment on the morality and justice of the sentence as wrongfully pre-empting the political process. 560 U.S. ___, No. 08–7412, slip op. (Thomas, J., dissenting).
277 567 U.S. ___, No. 10–9646, slip op. (2012).
281 Id. at 8. In Montgomery v. Louisiana, the Court cautioned, however, that Miller should not be read as merely imposing additional procedural hurdles before a juvenile offender could be sentenced to life without parole. See 577 U.S. ___, No. 14– 280, slip op. at 16 (2016). Instead, according to the Montgomery Court, Miller barred a sentence of life without parole for “all but the rarest of juvenile offenders, those whose crimes reﬂect permanent incorrigibility.” Id. at 17.

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