Posted: May 9th, 2022

THE 8TH AMENDMENT

THE 8TH AMENDMENT
As human beings, we are obliged to do things and make decisions that are ethically correct. Death penalty, regardless of the offence done by the victim is still murder. Everyone even the guilty has an alienable human right to life and therefore sentencing them to death is a violation of their rights which is unethical. It would be ethical to respect their rights to life by sentencing them to a life imprisonment. Retribution says that all those that are guilty should be punished, and that guilty people should be punished according to their mistakes. A lot of people think that retribution is flawed morally and problematic in its concept and practice, but ethically speaking, retribution is wrong. According to the US Catholic Conference, ‘we cannot teach that killing is wrong by killing’. Taking a life because a life has been taken is not justice, it is revenge and it is unethical. A person found guilty of murder should be sentenced to a life imprisonment without parole. This should be the maximum and most severe punishment on a human being, because it would be ethical respecting their right to life. Another reason why death penalty is not ethical is, it is the only crime that the guilty get punished with their crime. For example, an individual guilty of assault does not get punished by being beaten up, and a rapist does not get punished by being sexually assaulted. They are all sentenced to imprisonment with the length that is in accordance to their crime. The same thing should happen to a person found guilty of murder, they should not be killed as an act of finding justice for the victim, and they should be sentenced to a life imprisonment. In the USA a person found guilty of murder and is sentenced to a death penalty can wait up to 10 years before being executed. It is unethical because then, they are serving a double sentence, they stay in jail for an average of 10 years only for them to be executed at the end. They live with anticipation that any day could be their last, which is not the case for a life imprisonment. A criminal in prison for life knows that that is now their life and does not get to live with anxiety as is the case for death penalty.
The case of Miller vs Alabama, 579 U.S 460 (2012), was a case in the United States Supreme Court in which the court decided that for juvenile offender, mandatory sentences of life without parole are unconstitutional. This ruling applied to the juvenile persons that were guilty of murder. The case was based on a case Miller v. Alabama, No. 10-9646. Evan Miller (a 14 year old at the time) was convicted of murder after he and his friend, Colby Smith set their neighbor’s trailer on fire after buying drugs from him. Miller was sentenced to life imprisonment without parole. The three were indulging in marijuana and alcohol when the victim fell asleep. Miller tried replacing the victim’s wallet with his when the victim woke up and Smith hit him with a baseball bat. Miller proceeded to hit him severely with the baseball bat and later, the two returned to destroy the evidence of their crime by torching the victim’s trailer with him still in it where he died of smoke and severe injuries. In 2004, Miller was transferred to Lawrence County Circuit Court form Lawrence County juvenile court where he was tried like an adult for murder that happened during the course of the arson. Miller was indicted by the grand jury in 2006. During the trial, the jury returned the verdict as ‘guilty’ and he was sentenced to life imprisonment without parole by the trial court. He filed for a new trial- a post trial motion arguing that it was against the 8th Amendment and a cruel and unusual punishment to sentence a 14 year old to a life sentence without parole. However, the trial court denied this motion and on appeal, the lower court’s decision was affirmed by the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals.
On behalf of a 5-4 majority of the court, Justice Elene Kagan wrote that “mandatory life without parole for those under the age of 18 at the time of their crime violates the 8th Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment”. Mandatory life imprisonment without parole for a person under the age of 18 does not put into consideration that the individual is immature, impetuous, and does not appreciate the risks and consequences that are related to their actions. She continued to say that for sentencing purposes, children are different from adults. Chief Justice John Roberts said that mandatory life sentences could not be termed as unusual when they are being endorsed by most states. He said, “Determining the appropriate sentence of a teenager convicted of murder presents grave and challenging questions of morality, and social policy. Our role however, is to apply law, not to answer such questions”. Therefore according to Chief justice Roberts, the ruling did not violate the 8th Amendment.
The 8th Amendment of the United States prohibits the federal, local governments, and state of the United States, or any corporation, group, private enterprise, or individual, or any other government from imposing extreme bail, extreme fines, or cruel and unusual punishment, in any part of the US, on US property, for instance a US embassy, or against any resident of the US, or against any US citizen. The amendment was adopted along with the rest of the United States Bill Rights on the 15th of December, 1791. The phrases of this amendment originated from the English Bill of rights of 1689. Under the cruel and unusual punishment clause, the Supreme Court has prohibited application of capital punishment in several instances, but is still permitted in some cases such as when a defendant is convicted of murder. This prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment has led many courts to holding that the constitution totally prohibits certain kinds of punishments. On the excessive fines clause, the Supreme Court prohibits fines that are grossly excessive and amounts to a deprivation of property without due process of law. The Supreme Court has held that the federal government cannot set bail at a figure that is higher than the reasonably calculated figure in order to ensure that defendants appear to their trials. The Supreme Court ruled that the cruel and unusual punishment clause applies to the federal government as well as all the states. In the 8th amendment, the cruel and unusual clause is the most controversial part. This is because it is not clear what punishments are unusual, and how to measure the cruelty of the said punishments.

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