What is the current state of the law on the definition of punishment?
California, United States of America
The following excerpt is from Wilmot v. Contra Costa Cnty. Employees' Ret. Ass'n, 275 Cal.Rptr.3d 52, 60 Cal.App.5th 631 (Cal. App. 2021):
The immediate difficulty is that "punishment" has no single meaning, but draws meaning of the particular context. "Commonly understood definitions of punishment are intuitive .... [P]unishment has historically included a variety of methods limited only by human imagination, yet in situations going beyond traditional notions of punishment intuition alone does not provide adequate guidance." ( People v. McVickers (1992) 4 Cal.4th 81, 84, 13 Cal.Rptr.2d 850, 840 P.2d 955.)
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