Is life imprisonment a cruel and unusual penalty?

Weems v. United States, supra, 217 U.S. at 379, 30 S.Ct. at 554. Unconstitutional laws cannot be allowed to stand simply out of deference to the legislature. At some point a given penalty may by virtue of its inordinate length be cruel and unusual. Once one analyzes the sentences here imposed in the cool light of reason and considers the specific crimes involved, the relation of the sentences to those for other crimes in the state and to those for the same crimes in other states, life imprisonment is simply too much to withstand constitutional scrutiny.