I’m not sure I understand the exact issue with the sentencing. It sounds to me like it’s two unrelated grounds, one constitutional and one legal, but the article seems to blend it into one issue - what I’m unsure of is if this is confused writing or the issues interacted in some way. But I don’t like either one.
What I dislike about the “cruel and unusual” part is that I think that standard should apply in absolute, and not as a measure of whether a specific punishment is appropriate for a specific crime. I think the former is what the constitution intended to bar, and is also the plain meaning of the term. Giving judges the “cruel and unusual” power to decide whether a given penalty is appropriate for a specific crime is just using that to give them legislative power. I’m aware that there have been other instances of judges using “cruel and unusual” in this manner, but I oppose it nonetheless.
As for the “misapplied” issue, how Congress intended for the law to be applied shouldn’t have legal standing. If Congress doesn’t want the law to be applied more broadly then they should write it more narrowly. Personally I’m skeptical of many laws that give prosecutors and judges enormous latitude to apply it in circumstances for which it was never intended. These are frequently sold to the public on the basis of the notion that “we intend to use it only in such-and-such circumstances”, but then can be used much more broadly once enterprising prosecutors get hold of them. (Some examples that come to mind would be RICO, civil forfeiture laws, the “honest services” interpretation recently struck down by the SC.) But once those laws are on the books, I feel it should be up to the legislature to correct the issue, not judges.
[Note: these issues are unrelated to the murder conviction being also overturned - that was on other grounds.]
I don’t think there are actually two issues with the sentencing. The Court just argued that the “misapplied” aspect underscored how the sentences were disproportionate in analyzing the Eighth Amendment claim.
I have no particular heartburn over courts reviewing individual sentences for whether they are reasonably proportional to the crime under the Eighth Amendment. But I also think the reasoning employed here would never ever get employed for the benefit of ordinary people.
These guys get the cop treatment. Lucky for them. I think 30-year mandatory sentences are stupid for any crime, though, so its the right result for the wrong reasons.
Sorry, I was thinking of the Khadr case. The base he was in was shelled, ground troops came to sweep up and at that point he allegedly threw a grenade that killed an American soldier. He was held in Guantanamo for 10 years until he admitted guilty to murder. And no, not really making an argument. Just loudly rolling my eyes.
I bet if they had been robbing a bank, shooting up a church or attempting to secede from the union then the court would not have made that distinction. All they did was massacre some Iraqis.
A shame too, just as momentum was building towards a statue of GeeDubya in downtown Baghdad. Totally ruined the Iraqi enthusiastic approval of the American invasion. Incursion. Hanging around in somebody’s else’s country, armed.
It’s relevant because how well the actual crime matches up to the statute is relevant to whether the punishment is proportional.
Suppose there’s a criminal law that says wearing a mask during the commission of a crime gets a 3-year minimum sentence, because our democratic branches believe that concealing your identity during a crime is worthy of extra punishment. A famous TV actor playing Zorro is arrested for jaywalking and given a 3-year sentence. In that case, in a challenge to whether that sentence is proportional, it’s reasonable to ask whether the sentence is really punishing the thing the statute was intended to punish.
I’m not sure what you’re saying here. Are you saying that judges should only rule that a punishment is unconstitutional under Eighth Amendment grounds if it is universally inappropriate for all crimes? Or are you saying judges should have the authority to declare punishments unconstitutional for certain classes of crimes?
To give an example, if a judge ruling that life imprisonment was okay for violent felonies but was unconstitutionally cruel for traffic violations, would you feel that was acceptable? (Not saying you agree with the decision just that you find it within the judge’s authority to decide.) Or are you saying a judge can’t rule that life imprisonment is unconstitutional unless he rules it’s inherently unconstitutional for all crimes?
No. (Obviously, I also think it’s unacceptable for a legislature to pass laws authorizing such punishments.)
Right. Something is either cruel and unusual or not.
As previous, I understand that the notion that “cruel and unusual” is measured relative to the crime and not in absolute is not unprecedented. But AFAIK it’s a fairly recent innovation (“recent” meaning in the past few decades, at the most).
The (SCOTUS) dissent in that case took the position I’ve taken here. That “the prohibition against the infliction of cruel bodily torture cannot be extended so as to limit legislative discretion in prescribing punishment for crime by modes and methods which are not embraced within the prohibition against cruel bodily punishment.”
In that case, I guess we’re in disagreement. I feel a punishment can be cruel and unusual for one crime but not for another. Life imprisonment might be an appropriate punishment for murder but it would be a cruel and unusual punishment for a parking ticket.
While it’s unlikely that any legislature would actually impose life imprisonment for parking tickets, I don’t feel we should have a system that relies on legislative self-restraint. Our system is based on checks and balances. We need an source that is separate from the legislature that can rule that legislation is unconstitutional.
But that wasn’t the law that was overturned. The law that was ruled unconstitutional was one which created a mandatory minimum sentence of thirty years in prison for anyone who uses a military weapon during the commission of a felony.
My own personal opinion is that this is excessive. Although I’m not sure it’s so excessive that I would have ruled it was cruel and unusual. But it’s close enough to my “life imprisonment for a parking ticket” example that I can see where somebody else might disagree.
As I read the quotes in the OP, it sounds like the appeals court said that a law intended to punish drug traffickers became cruel and unusual when applied to someone who killed 14 unarmed civilians! That seems rather the opposite of your example, the harsher crime can’t be punished with the same sentence, unless (generic) you think that killing Iraqis is less serious than smuggling drugs.