From the Wool-sack

• Publication year: 1996
• Pages: 32
• Citation: Vol. 25 No. 7 Pg. 32

25 Colo.Law. 32 Colorado Lawyer 1996.

1996, July, Pg. 32. FROM THE WOOL-SACK

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32

Vol. 25, No. 7, Pg. 32

FROM THE WOOL-SACK

by Christopher R. Brauchli

There was a little man and he had a little gun,

And his bullets were made of lead, lead, lead;

He went to the brook, and saw a little duck,

And shot it through the head, head, head.

Anonymous, There Was a Little Man

Texas has come a long way. Older readers remember the 1980 U.S. Supreme Court case of Rummel v. Estelle. That case held that Texas' imposition of criminal sanctions on Mr. Rummel did not constitute cruel and unusual punishment.

Mr. Rummel was sentenced to life imprisonment as an habitual criminal following commission by him of three legal indiscretions. The first occurred in 1964, when he fraudulently used a credit card to obtain $80 worth of goods or services. For that offense, he was given three years in prison at a net cost to him, so to speak, of $26.26 a year (assuming he was permitted to keep the $80 worth of goods or services).

One year after he got out of prison, Mr. Rummel passed a forged check in the amount of $28.36. He got four years in prison for that offense, a cost to him of $7.09 per year.

No sooner did he get out of prison the second time than he agreed to repair someone's air conditioner and charged $120.75 for the service. The repair was not well done. Nonetheless, Mr. Rummel refused to return the money. As a result, he was convicted of obtaining $120.75 under false pretenses and sentenced to life imprisonment as an habitual criminal under the Texas Recidivist Statute.

The U.S. Supreme Court said that life in prison for those offenses was not cruel and unusual. Chief Justice Rehnquist offered a number of reasons why that kind of punishment was OK.

One reason was that in Arizona it was a felony to steal any neat or horned animal regardless of its value. In California, it was an offense to steal "avocados, citrus or deciduous fruits, nuts and artichokes." The existence of such laws gave the chief justice a basis to hold that the Texas punishment was appropriate, although his explanation did little to explain why.

Indeed, even the chief justice seemed puzzled. Speaking for the majority, he said that although we would all like to think that we are "moving down the road toward human decency," the majority of the Supreme Court, said he, has "no way of knowing in which direction that road lies."

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