The Eighth Amendment
Introduction
“Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishment inflicted,” This is the 8th amendment to the United States Constitution. The 8th amendment prevents the federal government from imposing harsh punishments on criminal suspects, either as the price for attaining pretrial release as a penalty for a crime after conviction. The amendment is meant to protect Americans from cruel punishments. The ambiguity in the 8th amendment has become a significant issue of debate, and clarification in the Supreme Court. When is bail said to be excessive? When should the death penalty be applied? Is it a must for the 8th amendment to be enforced in court? These are some of the questions that have arisen and requires the Supreme Court for interpretation.
Historical Background
The 8th amendment was borrowed from the English common law. The version of the English Common Law begun after trial of Titus Oates. Oates was believed to be a gossip and had formed a habit of falsely accusing people (Pimentel & David, 541). The king of England wanted Oates to serve as an example to deter others from lying in court. Oates used to be whipped brutally, while tied on a post in public for two days continuously every year. Oates would then be tied to a mobile pushcart and beaten across the town for another full day. The punishment was so brutal and harsh that parliament passed a law stopping the King from enforcing such violent punishment.
The 8th amendment was proposed by George Mason and Patrick Henry to make sure that Congress could not impose such punishment to lawbreakers. The 8th amendment was passed as part of the original bill of rights. The passing of the amendment was influenced by the ancient custom stated by the Oates case in England (Pimentel & David, 541). There has been a debate over the categories of punishment covered by the Cruel, and Unusual Punishment Clause. There are three different clauses; penalty not approved by the government, torturous punishment, and unequal and extreme punishments.
Although the disputed the ban on cruel, and unusual punishment by the English Bill of Rights applied only to punishment not authorized by the parliament. On the other hand, the American Colonial believed the ban was applied to torturous punishments like beheading, and drawing and quartering. Although such kind of punishment was virtually not present in colonial America, Justice Joseph wrote a book, “commentaries on the constitution of the United States”, in the book Joseph believed that “the provision would seem wholly unnecessary in a free government, since it is scarcely possible, justify such atrocious conduct, or any department of such government should authorize.”
Excessive Bail Clause
“Law and order” is a TV show that brings to your knowledge that one of the constant fights between prosecutors, and defense attorneys are on the amount of defendant’s bail. The prosecutor always wants the bond to be high and faces objection from the defense attorney. The 8th amendment is still the source of the dramatic moment.
Criminal justice court is not allowed to charge excessive bail, according to the constitution. In the case of Stack v. Boyle in 1951, the Supreme Court said the bond should be measured in two dimensions: how much money the defendant was worth, and how likely the person to flee before trial is. If the defendant is wealthier, then he should pay more money to be granted bail (Bagaric, Mirko & Sandeep, 301). This does not justify that a person accused of serious crimes will always be granted bail. For the case of massive atrocities, defendants may be held much longer until proved they are a no longer threat to public security.
Excessive Fines Clause
Sometimes, the fines on speeding tickets seem excessive. Regardless of your personal opinion, it is unlikely that the Supreme Court will overturn your penalty as extreme (Ryan &Meghan, 2129). This is because the court of law has only reversed an excessive fine once in history. In 1909 the case of Waters-Pierce Oil Co. v. Texas was heard, it was during this case that the court determined that a fine would only be extreme if it leads to in deprivation of possessions without due process of law. In other words, a penalty is termed radical if there is no pre-existing law stipulating the nature of the fine, and the fine is excessive in that, the affected person is likely to lose the property. Due to such limitations, it has become difficult for anyone to have his or her fines ruled unconstitutionally.
The Supreme Court case in U.S. v. Bajakajian was the only case where fine was considered unconstitutional. The Supreme Court ruled out the fine of $357,144 for lack of declaring money over $10,000 that was taken out of the state was excessive because it tallied the amount that the offender tried to take out (Ryan &Meghan, 2129). Therefore, the fine has to be wholly disproportional to the fault to be unconstitutional.
Case Related To the Eighth Amendment
Tyson Timbs, Petitioner V. Indiana
The opinion of the court was delivered by Justice Ginsburg. Tyson Timbs pleaded guilty before State Court in Indiana for the case of handling controlled goods, and plot to commit theft. The Court sentenced Tyson to one year of home detention, and equivalent probation of five years, which was inclusive of a Court-supervised addiction-treatment program (Ryan &Meghan, 2129). Timbs was also required to pay $1203 in total. During Timbs arrest, his vehicle was seized by the police, a Land Rover SUV which Timbs bought for about $42,000. Timbs had received money from an insurance company after his father’s death, where he later used the money to purchase the Land Cruiser.
The state involved a private law firm to bring a civil suit for forfeiture of Timbs’s Land Rover, alleging the vehicle had been used in the conveyance of Heroine. After Timbs pleaded guilty in the criminal case, a hearing on the forfeiture demand was held by the trial Court. Irrespective of the findings that Timbs’s vehicle had been used to ease violation of the criminal statute, the requested forfeiture was denied by the Court of Law. Timbs’s car was worth ten times the maximum $10,000 fine measurable against him for his drug sentence. Seizure of Timbs’s vehicle, the court determined, would be disproportionate to the gravity of Timbs’s crime, hence unconstitutional under the 8th Amendment’s Excessive Fines Clause. The consideration of the 8th amendment was affirmed by the Court of the appeal of Indiana but was reversed by the Indiana Supreme Court.
The decision about whether the forfeiture would be excessive was not determined by the Supreme Court. Instead, the Supreme Court held it that, the Excessive Fines Clause constraints only centralized actions, and is not applicable to state impositions
Justice Gorsuch Concurring To the Judgment of Timbs
The majority faithfully applies to our precedent, and based on wealth historical evidence, Gorsuch concludes that “Fourteenth Amendment incorporates the Eighth Amendment’s Excessive Fines Clause against the state. I agree with the conclusion. As an original matter, I acknowledge, the appropriate vehicle for incorporation may well be the Fourteenth Amendment’s privileges or immunities clause, rather than, as this court long assumed, the due process clause.”
Justice Thomas Concurring To the Judgment of Timbs
“I agree with the court that the Fourteenth Amendment makes the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on excessive fines fully applicable to the state. But I cannot agree with the route that the Court takes to reach this conclusion. Instead of reading the Fourteenth Amendment Due Process Clause to encompass a substantive right that has nothing to do with the process, I would hold that the right to be free from excessive fines is one of the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States protected by the Fourteenth Amendments.”
Death Penalty for Rape
Coker V. Georgia
Coker while serving various sentences for murder, rape, and kidnapping escaped from Georgia prison, and in the course raped a woman, and committed armed robbery. Coker was later caught, and sentenced to death on the rape charge. The death case is reversed, and the case is remanded. Pp.433 U.S. 591-600
Mr. Justice White concluded that the sentence of death for the crime of rape is a grossly unequal, and excessive penalty, and therefore forbidden by the Eighth Amendment as cruel and unusual punishment. The Eighth Amendment prevents not only the severe but also excessive sentence about the crime committed. Pp. 433 U.S. 591-592
The conclusion that the death sentence imposed on Coker is unequal punishment for the rape case, it is not affected by the fact that the jury found aggravating conditions of prior capital offense convictions, and occurrence of the rape while committing armed robbery (Reinert& Alexander, 817). A crime for which death sentence is also allowed since the previous convictions does not change that the violation did not involve taking away of life. Pp. 433 U.S. 598-599. Justice Brennan also concluded that the death penalty is a cruel, and unusual punishment prohibited by the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments.
Conclusion
In conclusion, it is fair to say that the constitutionality of State punishment has never been at pale since 1975. Also, the Eighth Amendment has never been understood to include a prohibition against state punishment, under the cruel and unusual punishments clause. State punishment has always been a remarkable matter. In Coker v. Georgia, we find out that death sentence was reversed following the Eighth Amendment arguing that rape case was not equivalent to murder sentence because the life of the of a person was not claimed. Also, Tyson Timbs, Petitioner V. Indiana finds a hard time when his vehicle Land Rover model worth $42, 0000 is held irrespective of a maximum $10,000 fine measurable against him for his drug sentence. The court claims that the vehicle was used in ferrying cocaine; hence the decision whether the forfeiture would be extreme was not determined by the Supreme Court.
The Eighth Amendment protected people from situations where the number of bails and fines could not match the perception of the crime committed. The American Constitution is supposed to guarantee an accountable, and stable government. The Eighth wanted every American Citizen to get a fair judgment based on the misconduct committed, whether it regards the bond set or the amount of fine one is obligated to produce.
Work Cited
Bagaric, Mirko, and Sandeep Gopalan. “Sound Principles, Undesirable Outcomes: Justice Scalia’s Paradoxical Eighth Amendment Jurisprudence.” Akron L. Rev. 50 (2016): 301.
Pimentel, David. “Forfeitures and the Eighth Amendment: A practical approach to the excessive fines clause as a check on government seizures.” Harv. L. & Pol’y Rev. 11 (2017): 541.
Reinert, Alexander A. “Reconceptualizing the Eighth Amendment: Slaves, Prisoners, and Cruel and Unusual Punishment.” NCL Rev. 94 (2015): 817.
Ryan, Meghan J. “Taking dignity seriously: Excavating the backdrop of the eighth amendment.” U. Ill. L. Rev. (2016): 2129.