Court Opinion

ID: 9624170
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 06:53:04.944362+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:05:40.370474
License: Public Domain

Justice MARTIN
concurring.
The majority refers to the interest of North Carolina in our constitutional prohibition against “cruel or unusual punishments.” In this respect, I note that Article I, Section 27 of the North Carolina Constitution provides a prohibition similar to the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The difference is found in the provision upon which the State’s duty to provide medical care for inmates is based: While the federal Constitution prohibits “cruel and unusual punishments,” our State Constitution prohibits “cruel or unusual punishments.” The conjunction in the *846federal Constitution has been interpreted to limit the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition to punishments that are both cruel and unusual. See Stanford v. Kentucky, 492 U.S. 361, 378, 106 L. Ed. 2d 306, 323, reh’g denied, 492 U.S. 937, 106 L. Ed. 2d 635 (1989). The disjunctive term “or” in the State Constitution expresses a prohibition on punishments more inclusive than the Eighth Amendment. It therefore follows that if the Cruel and Unusual Punishment clause of the federal Constitution requires states to provide adequate medical care for state inmates, the Cruel or Unusual Punishment clause of the North Carolina Constitution imposes at least this same duty, if not a greater duty.