A court evaluates a sentence’s alignment with acceptable goals of punishment such as retribution, deterrence, incapacitation, and rehabilitation. The court scrutinizes whether the punishment serves any of these purposes effectively and justifiably when applied to the particular crime and offender.
For example: imposing a hefty fine for a minor traffic violation would likely be considered contradictory to the goal of retribution, as it would exceed what is deemed a proportional response to the severity of the offense.