Constitutional Law

6 Pages 1523 Words

based on whether the "current" conviction was committed prior to March 8, 2000 (when Proposition 21 went into affect).
The Eighth Amendment protects citizens against excessive actions. These include excessive bail, excessive fines, and cruel and unusual punishment. These were all provisions found in English law used to restrict the excesses of the English kings.
During congressional consideration of this provision one Member objected to ''the import of [the words] being too indefinite'' and another Member said: ''No cruel and unusual punishment is to be inflicted; it is sometimes necessary to hang a man, villains often deserve whipping, and perhaps having their ears cut off; but are we in the future to be prevented from inflicting these punishments because they are cruel? If a more lenient mode of correcting vice and deterring others from the commission of it would be invented, it would be very prudent in the Legislature to adopt it; but until we have some security that this will be done, we ough...