No Cruel or Unusual Punishment

No Cruel or Unusual Punishment PDF Author: David Machajewski
Publisher: The Rosen Publishing Group, Inc
ISBN: 1538343118
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 32

Get Book

Book Description
When the U.S. Constitution was ratified in 1788, it had a major flaw: it failed to acknowledge individual rights. Early Americans were not pleased. They didn't believe their new government was respecting their freedoms. Thus, the Bill of Rights was created. Readers will explore the history, significance, and controversy surrounding the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits cruel or unusual punishment. Primary sources, sidebars, and compelling stories, demonstrate how the amendment protects, and potentially harms, criminals. Historic and present-day examples of long-standing debates about the amendment's controversial "cruel and unusual" clause further illustrate the amendment's importance.

No Cruel or Unusual Punishment

No Cruel or Unusual Punishment PDF Author: David Machajewski
Publisher: The Rosen Publishing Group, Inc
ISBN: 1538343118
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 32

Get Book

Book Description
When the U.S. Constitution was ratified in 1788, it had a major flaw: it failed to acknowledge individual rights. Early Americans were not pleased. They didn't believe their new government was respecting their freedoms. Thus, the Bill of Rights was created. Readers will explore the history, significance, and controversy surrounding the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits cruel or unusual punishment. Primary sources, sidebars, and compelling stories, demonstrate how the amendment protects, and potentially harms, criminals. Historic and present-day examples of long-standing debates about the amendment's controversial "cruel and unusual" clause further illustrate the amendment's importance.

The Story of Cruel and Unusual

The Story of Cruel and Unusual PDF Author: Colin Dayan
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262551969
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 129

Get Book

Book Description
A searing indictment of the American penal system that finds the roots of the recent prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo in the steady dismantling of the Eighth Amendment's prohibition of "cruel and unusual" punishment. The revelations of prisoner abuse and torture at Abu Ghraib and more recently at Guantánamo were shocking to most Americans. And those who condemned the treatment of prisoners abroad have focused on U.S. military procedures and abuses of executive powers in the war on terror, or, more specifically, on the now-famous White House legal counsel memos on the acceptable limits of torture. But in The Story of Cruel and Unusual, Colin Dayan argues that anyone who has followed U.S. Supreme Court decisions regarding the Eighth Amendment prohibition of "cruel and unusual" punishment would recognize the prisoners' treatment at Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo as a natural extension of the language of our courts and practices in U.S. prisons. In fact, it was no coincidence that White House legal counsel referred to a series of Supreme Court decisions in the 1980s and 1990s in making its case for torture.Dayan traces the roots of "acceptable" torture to slave codes of the nineteenth century that deeply embedded the dehumanization of the incarcerated in our legal system. Although the Eighth Amendment was interpreted generously during the prisoners' rights movement of the late 1960s and 1970s, this period of judicial concern was an anomaly. Over the last thirty years, Supreme Court decisions have once again dismantled Eighth Amendment protections and rendered such words as "cruel" and "inhuman" meaningless when applied to conditions of confinement and treatment during detention. Prisoners' actual pain and suffering have been explained away in a rhetorical haze—with rationalizations, for example, that measure cruelty not by the pain or suffering inflicted, but by the intent of the person who inflicted it. The Story of Cruel and Unusual is a stunningly original work of legal scholarship, and a searing indictment of the U.S. penal system.

The Eighth Amendment and Its Future in a New Age of Punishment

The Eighth Amendment and Its Future in a New Age of Punishment PDF Author: Meghan J. Ryan
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108580289
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 339

Get Book

Book Description
This book provides a theoretical and practical exploration of the constitutional bar against cruel and unusual punishments, excessive bail, and excessive fines. It explores the history of this prohibition, the current legal doctrine, and future applications of the Eighth Amendment. With contributions from the leading academics and experts on the Eighth Amendment and the wide range of punishments and criminal justice actors it touches, this volume addresses constitutional theory, legal history, federalism, constitutional values, the applicable legal doctrine, punishment theory, prison conditions, bail, fines, the death penalty, juvenile life without parole, execution methods, prosecutorial misconduct, race discrimination, and law & science.

Cruel & Unusual

Cruel & Unusual PDF Author: John D. Bessler
Publisher: UPNE
ISBN: 1555537170
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 474

Get Book

Book Description
This indispensable history of the Eighth Amendment and the founders' views of capital punishment is also a passionate call for the abolition of the death penalty based on the notion of cruel and unusual punishment

Cruel and Unusual

Cruel and Unusual PDF Author: Anne-Marie Cusac
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300155492
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 333

Get Book

Book Description
The statistics are startling. Since 1973, America’s imprisonment rate has multiplied over five times to become the highest in the world. More than two million inmates reside in state and federal prisons. What does this say about our attitudes toward criminals and punishment? What does it say about us? This book explores the cultural evolution of punishment practices in the United States. Anne-Marie Cusac first looks at punishment in the nation’s early days, when Americans repudiated Old World cruelty toward criminals and emphasized rehabilitation over retribution. This attitude persisted for some 200 years, but in recent decades we have abandoned it, Cusac shows. She discusses the dramatic rise in the use of torture and restraint, corporal and capital punishment, and punitive physical pain. And she links this new climate of punishment to shifts in other aspects of American culture, including changes in dominant religious beliefs, child-rearing practices, politics, television shows, movies, and more. America now punishes harder and longer and with methods we would have rejected as cruel and unusual not long ago. These changes are profound, their impact affects all our lives, and we have yet to understand the full consequences.

No Cruel and Unusual Punishments Supreme Court Decisions

No Cruel and Unusual Punishments Supreme Court Decisions PDF Author: Robert Dittmer
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 828

Get Book

Book Description
This is a sourcebook on the supreme court's decisions on the no cruel and unusual punishment's clause of the eighth amendment.

A Wild Justice: The Death and Resurrection of Capital Punishment in America

A Wild Justice: The Death and Resurrection of Capital Punishment in America PDF Author: Evan J. Mandery
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393239586
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 545

Get Book

Book Description
New York Times Book Review Editor's Choice Drawing on never-before-published original source detail, the epic story of two of the most consequential, and largely forgotten, moments in Supreme Court history. For two hundred years, the constitutionality of capital punishment had been axiomatic. But in 1962, Justice Arthur Goldberg and his clerk Alan Dershowitz dared to suggest otherwise, launching an underfunded band of civil rights attorneys on a quixotic crusade. In 1972, in a most unlikely victory, the Supreme Court struck down Georgia’s death penalty law in Furman v. Georgia. Though the decision had sharply divided the justices, nearly everyone, including the justices themselves, believed Furman would mean the end of executions in America. Instead, states responded with a swift and decisive showing of support for capital punishment. As anxiety about crime rose and public approval of the Supreme Court declined, the stage was set in 1976 for Gregg v. Georgia, in which the Court dramatically reversed direction. A Wild Justice is an extraordinary behind-the-scenes look at the Court, the justices, and the political complexities of one of the most racially charged and morally vexing issues of our time.

Cruel and Unusual Punishment

Cruel and Unusual Punishment PDF Author: Joseph A. Melusky
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1576076059
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 401

Get Book

Book Description
In one of the lengthiest, noisiest, and hottest legal debates in U.S. history, Cruel and Unusual Punishment stands out as a levelheaded, even-handed, and thorough analysis of the issue. The Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution created one of the nation's most valued freedoms but, at the same time, one of its most persistent controversies. On 184 separate occasions, the Supreme Court attempted to decide what constitutes "cruel and unusual punishment." Constitutional scholars Joseph A. Melusky and Judge Keith A. Pesto help readers make sense of the controversy. The authors begin by sketching the context of the debate in a general overview that addresses issues such as excessive bails and fines, and noncapital offenses. But their primary focus is capital punishment. In a detailed, chronologically ordered discussion, they trace the evolving opinion of the nation's highest court from the late 19th century to the present, analyzing issues, arguments, holdings, and outcomes.

Preventing Cruel and Unusual Punishment

Preventing Cruel and Unusual Punishment PDF Author: Hallie Murray
Publisher: Enslow Publishing, LLC
ISBN: 0766085635
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 50

Get Book

Book Description
The Founding Fathers created the Eighth Amendment to protect the people from the kind of abuse they had seen while the colonies were under British rule. But to this day, Americans continue to argue about what exactly “cruel and unusual,” “excessive bail,” and “excessive fines” mean. Through full-color and black-and-white photos, engaging text, and primary sources, students will examine the events leading up to the Eighth Amendment’s creation, how it has been defined throughout the centuries, and how it is interpreted today. In addition, informative sidebars and a further reading section with books and websites encourage students to explore the people and events of this time in history in more depth.

Our Rights

Our Rights PDF Author: David J. Bodenhamer
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0195325672
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 258

Get Book

Book Description
"This boxed set contains classroom resources to help America's educators teach about the most important documents in U.S. history"--Box