Tag Archives: Eighth Amendment

SCOTUS Opinion: Court Preserves Rape Convictions Against Military Servicemembers

Originally, the Uniform Code of Military Justice mandated that a rape conviction could be punishable by death. Under that Code, penalties punishable by death could be brought at any time, while all other offenses had to be brought within five years. In United States v. Briggs, three servicemembers were convicted of rape, but after their convictions the Court ruled in ... Read More

SCOTUS Opinion: Court Begins Scaling Back Qualified Immunity

In Taylor v. Riojas, an inmate sued the correctional officers who confined him in a pair of “shockingly unsanitary cells,” one of which the inmate was forced to sleep in without a bunk or clothing in frigid conditions. The Fifth Circuit had held that the conditions violated the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment, but since the law ... Read More

SCOTUS Opinion: Court Rejects As-Applied Challenge To Execution By Pentobarbital

After being convicted of murder in Missouri, Russell Bucklew was set to be executed through the lethal injection of the sedative pentobarbital. He raised an as-applied challenge, arguing that he suffered from a medical condition that would result in extreme pain if he received the pentobarbital. Bucklew suggested that he be executed through nitrogen hypoxia instead, which had never been ... Read More

SCOTUS Opinion: Eighth Amendment Bars Execution Of Defendant Without “Rational Understanding” Of The Reason For Execution

After he was sentenced to death for killing a police officer, Vernon Madison suffered a series of strokes and was diagnosed with dementia. In a prior series of appeals by Madison, the U.S. Supreme Court held that his mere inability to remember his crime did not establish that Madison was incompetent to be executed. When his execution was rescheduled on ... Read More

Eighth Amendment Applies To State Civil Forfeitures

Tyson Timbs pleaded guilty to dealing in heroin in Indiana, for which the maximum fine was $10,000. The State sought to use civil forfeiture to seize his SUV, which Timbs bought for $42,000, which was allegedly used to move the heroin. The state trial court denied the State’s request as violative of the Eighth Amendment’s protection against excessive fines, but ... Read More

Subsequent SCOTUS Decisions Are Not “Clearly Established Law” For Habeas Petitions

After being convicted by Ohio’s state courts for murder and sentenced to death in 1986, Danny Hill challenged the judgment on the basis that the Eighth Amendment prohibits someone who is “mentally retarded” from receiving a death sentence, as established in Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U.S. 304 (2002). When that failed in the state courts, he filed a federal ... Read More