What is the current state of the law on excessive bail and cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment?
California, United States of America
The following excerpt is from People v. Capacete, G048795 (Cal. App. 2014):
The Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution states: "Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted." For noncapital cases, the Eighth Amendment contains a proportionality principle, but it is "'narrow.'" (Ewing v. California (2003) 538 U.S. 11, 20.) The appropriate standard for determining whether a particular sentence for a term of years violates the Eighth Amendment is gross disproportionality. That is, "[t]he Eighth Amendment does not require strict proportionality between crime and sentence. Rather, it forbids only extreme sentences that are 'grossly disproportionate' to the crime.
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