Opinion ID: 2278146
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 13

Heading: The Cruel and Unusual Standard

Text: The Eighth Amendment provides: Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted. U.S. Const. amend. XIII. The Eighth Amendment has been incorporated to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment. Roper, 543 U.S. at 561, 125 S.Ct. 1183 (citations omitted); U.S. Const. amend. XIV. Embedded within the Eighth Amendment is the precept of justice that punishment for crime should be graduated and proportioned to [the] offense. Weems v. United States, 217 U.S. 349, 367, 30 S.Ct. 544, 54 L.Ed. 793 (1910). What is permissive under the Eighth Amendment varies depending on the age of the defendant. See, e.g., Roper, 543 U.S. at 553-54, 125 S.Ct. 1183 (considering the characteristics of juveniles in holding that imposing the death penalty on juveniles is unconstitutional); Thompson v. Oklahoma, 487 U.S. 815, 108 S.Ct. 2687, 101 L.Ed.2d 702 (1988) (considering juveniles' characteristics in holding that imposing the death penalty on children 16 and younger is unconstitutional). To determine what is cruel and unusual, courts must look to the evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society. Trop v. Dulles, 356 U.S. 86, 101, 78 S.Ct. 590, 2 L.Ed.2d 630 (1958) (plurality opinion). The standard of cruel and unusual is necessarily an evolving standard because it embodies a moral judgment. Graham, 130 S.Ct. at 2011; Kennedy v. Louisiana, 554 U.S. 407, 128 S.Ct. 2641, 2649, 171 L.Ed.2d 525 (2008). The standard itself remains the same, but its applicability must reflect the changes in moral understanding of society. Graham, 130 S.Ct. at 2011; Kennedy, 128 S.Ct. at 2649 (2008).