The eighth amendment

                The eighth amendment seeks to prevent “cruel and unusual punishment.” As one might expect within political discourse, it is debatable as to what constitutes cruel and unusual. The obvious starting-point here is the death penalty. To some, it could be considered a relatively unusual punishment within a democratic society. However, it is arguably less cruel than a lengthy period of confinement with seemingly no end in sight. Given the federalist character of our country, the use or otherwise of the death penalty is down to the states rather than the federal government (although the death penalty does exist for certain federal crimes such as the atrocity committed by Timothy McVeigh). Some states are much more inclined to use the death penalty (such as Texas), whereas the state of Michigan has never imposed the death penalty. During the Warren Court, the death penalty was ruled to be unconstitutional in the case of Furman v. Georgia (1972). However, the ruling was later overturned and the death penalty was once again judged to be in accordance with the confines of the eighth amendment.

                The eighth amendment has been the subject of a number of cases heard by the Roberts Court. In 2005, the Court ruled in the case of Roper v. Simmons (2005) that the death penalty was unconstitutional for crimes committed under the age of 18. In 2008, the Court decided that execution via lethal injection was constitutional in the case of Baze v. Rees. In that same year, the Supreme Court ruled that the cruel and unusual punishment clause does not allow any state in the union to punish a criminal for the rape of a child (Kennedy v. Louisiana (2008)). Four years later, it was decided by the Supreme Court that a mandatory life sentence without chance of parole when given to a juvenile infringed the eighth amendment. The cases in question were Jackson v. Hobbs (2012) and Miller v. Alabama (2012).