Opinion ID: 2239438
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Comparative Test.

Text: There is in my judgment a different and equally sound legal reason for declaring the death penalty unconstitutional as well. The original interpretation of cruel and unusual was that it applied to those punishments which involved an infliction of extreme physical pain, e.g., cutting off a member of the body or rendering a part of the body non-functional. Weems v. United States, supra . It is reasonable to consider this concept of cruel and unusual punishment as the first attempt to define and describe a class of punishments which are prohibited by the Constitution. This class of punishments is prohibited and may not be utilized by society no matter how great the harm done to society by the offender. The Weems case then adds to the class of prohibited punishments a sentence of fifteen years imprisonment at hard and painful labor in ankle and wrist chains with added disabilities. The Trop case added to the class the infliction of extreme psychological anxiety or distress. In my judgment, at this point, a class of punishments has been defined which by necessity must include the death punishment. If any of the punishments which have specifically been held to be per se cruel and unusual punishments, and which are constitutionally impermissible no matter the harm caused by the offender, would be chosen by every reasonable person in lieu of the death penalty in the exercise of free choice, such a universal choice, would in my judgment condemn the death penalty as unconstitutional. In my judgment every reasonable person, when faced with the choice, would chose the penalty condemned as unconstitutional in Weems and Trop instead of death. Every reasonable person would also choose some of the physical tortures rather than death. What is demonstrated by this argument is that some punishments prohibited by the Constitution are in fact deemed less severe and less cruel than the death penalty, and since the death penalty is more severe and more cruel, it too is in violation of that same Constitution. It is simply against reason to affirm on the one hand that society cannot cut off an offender's hand, and that society cannot require a prisoner to wear ankle and wrist chains for fifteen years, and that society cannot expatriate an offender, and to contend on the other that society can strap a man in the electric chair and kill him by a lethal charge of electricity.