Law, Ethics, and Legal System

The Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution forbids any type of cruel and unusual punishments. Nearly every state also has its own ban on these penalties. The concept of cruel and unusual punishment was engrained into the English law. The biggest issue that focuses on the 8th Amendment would be capital punishment – issuing death sentences. Typically, states can pursue their own guidelines with capital punishment. It wasn’t until 1972 that the dealt penalty was ever challenged by the Supreme Court. Even then, states were only warned that capital punishment should be done in a consistent and fair way (Bonta & Gendreau, 1990).

        The rights of anyone accused of committing a crime is protected by the Constitution. As an example, Article I of the Constitution establishes the right of an injection of habeas corpus – an order that demands a judge to assess if there would be sufficient cause to keep an individual in jail. However, general protection can be found in the 4th, 5th, 6th, and 8th Amendments. Basically, the cruel and unusual punishment section assesses punishment against the general public’s exclusion of inhuman treatment. It stops the government from inflicting penalties that are barbaric or way to severe for a crime, including prison conditions (Bonta & Gendreau, 1990).

        Cruel and unusual punishment has changed over the past several years as courts started responding to the changing standards of morality. The Supreme Court ruled that the death penalty is cruel and unusual punishment if it was being applied to mentally retarded or insane defendants. There’s a lot of debate whether the methods of the death penalty violate the ban on cruel and unusual punishment, such as lethal injection. Unfortunately, there’s not a set standard when deciding what may constitute cruel and unusual punishment. The idea is adjustable and changes when society changes, typically broadening so much that more types of punishment fall under the category of cruel and unusual punishment (Meltsner, 2011).

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