The People vs. Eighth Amendment essays

The People vs. Eighth Amendment essays The People vs. Eighth Amendment The business of cruel and unusual punishment has long been juxtaposed with the discussion of the death penalty. Beginning with Adam and Eve and continuing to the present day, society has struggled with the notion of punishment. From Salem, Massachusetts, where 24 alleged witches hanged, to Starke, Florida, the home of the states infamous electric chair, Old Sparky, punishment has evolved from a humiliating, public spectacle to our current system of private, isolated incarceration. In the 1972 United States Supreme Court decision of Furman v. Georgia the relationship between public consensus and correlating jurisprudence is clear. In this case the Supreme Court reverses Georgias convicted of three Negro men to death. Capital punishment is struck down on the basis of violating the cruel and unusual punishment clause of the Eighth Amendment. The court concluded the penalty was arbitrary, lacking guidelines for juries and judges, and consisting of insufficient due process safeguards. Many justices in their concurring opinions justify their opinions by stating the penalty was morally unacceptable to the people of the United States. The decision maps out a repetitive trend between what the people think is right and how the court responds. Less than four years after Furman v. Georgia, the Supreme Court reverses the decision to do away with the death penalty and instead reinstates it, even broadening the boundaries in some aggravated rape cases (Furman). The juvenile death penalty is a very controversial issue and it is becoming increasingly unacceptable in most countries. In fact, the United States is one of the few countries left to sign the Convention on the Rights of the Child which abolishes the death penalty for juveniles. Likewise, the United States is one of only eight countries in the world to have executed a juvenile offender since 1990. In Octobe...