One of the cornerstones of American legal system is the Eighth Amendments prohibition against “cruel and unusual punishment” (United States Constitution, amend. VIII). Because the Eighth Amendment is silent on what forms of punishment constitute inherently “cruel and unusual,” flushing out the details has been left up to the Supreme Court. As society advances and develops, views towards punishment correspondingly shift. While it may have been a widely accepted practice to draw and quarter people three hundred years ago, by today’s standards, this punishment certainly constitutes cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment.
The most controversial form of punishment under the American legal regime is the death penalty. There are extensive moral, political, and philosophical debates surrounding the continued use of the death penalty. It is widely recognized that the death penalty is a far more severe penalty than others. The finality of death and the taking of another life, no matter how heinous a crime the defendant may have previously committed, is troubling to many.
Over the years, the Supreme Court has been repeatedly confronted with the constitutionality of the death penalty under the Eighth Amendment. In the first major case, Furman v. Georgia, the Court effectively put into place a national moratorium on the death penalty. But the Court decided a relatively narrow issue; that is, the state death penalty laws as currently administered were unconstitutional (Furman v. Georgia 239). The backdrop of the case revealed that the death penalty had a grossly disproportionate impact on minority groups, particularly African Americans (Furman v. Georgia 310). Because such an awesome and unique punishment as death should never be administered in a racially discriminatory manner, the Court held that the death penalty as applied amounted to cruel and unusual punishment.
Four years later, the Court was again faced with the issue of whether the death penalty violated the Eighth Amendment. The Supreme Court held that Georgia’s death penalty scheme passed constitutional scrutiny and that the death penalty in and of itself was not unconstitutional or a cruel and unusual form of punishment (Gregg v. Georgia 206-207). The majority opinion acknowledged that the Eighth Amendment’s meaning was to be drawn from “evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society,” and using this standard as a guide, concluded that the death penalty still fit within this paradigm (Gregg v. Georgia 173).
Three Justices dissented in the Gregg decision and would have found that the death penalty in all instances was cruel and unusual and violated the Eighth Amendment. While the dissenting view has never garnered sufficient support to completely abolish the death penalty, the Supreme Court has attempted to narrow the categories of persons and classes of offenses that states can subject to capital punishment. The “evolving standards of decency” has been important in guiding the Court’s subsequent decisions to limit the application of the death penalty. The trend has been to slowly back away from the death penalty and erode its application. Perhaps one day soon, the Supreme Court will declare the death penalty across the board as an unconstitutional form of punishment.
Works Cited
Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238. Supreme Court of the US (1972). Web. 7 Apr. 2016.
Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153. Supreme Court of the US (1976). Web. 7 Apr. 2016.
United States Constitution, amend. VIII. Web. 7 Apr. 2016.
