An opinion poll, not necessarily a debate.
Let’s say Scott Peterson got life w/o parole.
For the duration of his sentence he would be in a windowless cell by himself for 23½ hours per day. He would be let out of the cell, but not allowed out in the prison yard, for exercise and medical checkups, etc. His food would be brought to him. He would not be allowed to even see another prisoner.
Would you consider this cruel and unusual?
I think anyone in that situation would have more than enough time to find a creative way to commit suicide well before they live out their life sentence! :eek:
you are pretty dang close to what i would consider just for first degree murder. so i think you are fairly close to the line.
what i consider just would be tossed by scotus as cruel and unusual.
Well, it’s definitely unusual and borderline cruel. Not that I particularly mind though… I can tolerate that sort of cruelty but not beatings, torture, the death penalty, etc.
I think SP should be released from prison.
In downtown Modesto, Calif.
On, say, the corner of McHenry and Briggsmore roads.
At a publicly announced place and time.
I don’t, really. But this is humorous anyway.
What you describe is almost exactly the conditions that innates have at the “supermax” prisons. Two well known people that were sent to a supermax are Timothy McVeigh (before he was executed) and Theodore Kaczynski (the Unabomber). There is a supermax in California so no, I don’t think they consider it cruel and unusual punishment.
It’d be a lot crueller than the death penalty, that’s for sure…
Absolutely.
Is it just? I don’t know. But it’s certainly cruel and unusual. In my opinion, it’s a sentence worse than death.
A federal judge in Wisconsin has ruled that the conditions at our Supermax, Boscobel, do violate the 8th Amendment. It’s been a while so I don’t recall all the specifics; Googling “Crabb Boscobel” brings up a lot of hits which someone with a higher level of interest than I can sort through (Barbara Crabb is the judge’s name).
And yes, I would consider locking someone in a room forever to be cruel and unusual.
Seconded. I’d welcome an occaisional beating if I was denied any other kind of intellectual or social stimulation.
Yes.
IMHO, nevertheless appropriate for the likes of Peterson, Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden and others of their ilk. Also anyone else who kills a child in cold blood on purpose.