Corporal Punishment

AuthorJeffrey Lehman, Shirelle Phelps

Page 210

Physical punishment, as distinguished from pecuniary punishment or a fine; any kind of punishment inflicted on the body.

Corporal punishment arises in two main contexts: as a method of discipline in schools and as a form of punishment for committing a crime.

Corporal punishment, usually in the form of paddling, though practiced in U.S. schools since the American Revolution, was only sanctioned by the U.S. Supreme Court in the late 1970s. In Ingraham v. Wright, 430 U.S. 651, 97 S. Ct. 1401, 51 L. Ed. 2d 711 (1977), students from a Florida junior high school had received physical punishment, including paddling so severe that one student had required medical treatment. The plaintiffs, parents of students who had been disciplined, brought suit against the school district, alleging that corporal punishment in public schools constituted CRUEL AND UNUSUAL PUNISHMENT in violation of the EIGHTH AMENDMENT to the U.S. Constitution. The plaintiffs also maintained that the FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT required DUE PROCESS before corporal punishment could be administered.

The Court rejected the Eighth Amendment claim, holding that the prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment was designed to protect persons who were convicted of crimes, not students who were paddled as a form of discipline. The Court also held that although corporal punishment did implicate a constitutionally protected liberty interest, traditional COMMON LAW remedies, such as filing an action in TORT, were "fully adequate to afford due process." Thus, the Court concluded, teachers could use "reasonable but not excessive" corporal punishment to discipline students.

Since the Court's decision in Ingraham, corporal punishment in the schools has been challenged on other constitutional grounds. In Hall v. Tawney, 621 F.2d 607 (4th Cir. 1980), a grade-school student from West Virginia alleged that she had been severely injured after she had been struck repeatedly with a hard, rubber paddle by her teacher while the school principal had looked on. She filed suit against the school, claiming that her Eighth Amendment rights had been violated and that she had been deprived of her procedural due process rights. She further alleged that she had been denied SUBSTANTIVE DUE PROCESS under 42 U.S.C.A. § 1983, which provides that a civil action may be brought for a deprivation of constitutional rights. While the case was pending, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its decision in Ingraham, thus foreclosing the plaintiff's Eighth Amendment and procedural due process claims.

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