Cruel and Unusual Non-Capital Punishments

ARTICLES
CRUEL AND UNUSUAL NON-CAPITAL PUNISHMENTS
William W. Berry III*
ABSTRACT
The Supreme Court has rendered the Eighth Amendment a dead letter with
respect to non-capital, non-juvenile life-without-parole sentences. Its cases have
erected a gross disproportionality standard that seems insurmountable in most
cases, even for draconian and excessive sentences. State courts have adopted a
similar approach in interpreting state constitutional Eighth Amendment analogues,
often f‌inding that they are no broader than the Supreme Court’s narrow interpre-
tation of the Eighth Amendment, despite linguistic variations in many cases.
Nonetheless, in a handful of state cases, state courts have found that state pun-
ishments violate the Eighth Amendment or its state constitutional analogue. This
Article examines those cases to identify which non-capital punishments have
caused courts to limit state punishment practices even in the shadow of an over-
whelming, albeit unfortunate, trend of according constitutional deference to state
punishment practices. In light of these decisions, this Article advances a series of
possible arguments by which to attack state and federal punishment practices in
an effort to create more exceptions to the draconian status quo constitutional rule.
In Part I, the Article begins by providing an overview of Eighth Amendment
gross disproportionality doctrine and its use in state constitutional analogues to
the Eighth Amendment. Part II examines the handful of state court cases that
have found punishments unconstitutionally disproportionate. In Part III, the
Article advances one set of arguments—both systemic and case-based—for use in
attacking non-capital state punishments under state constitutions. Part IV then
advances a second set of arguments—both systemic and case-based—for use in
attacking non-capital state punishments under the Eighth Amendment. The
Article concludes that such arguments can be successful in the future, even where
they may have failed in the past.
INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1628
I. WHICH PUNISHMENTS ARE CRUEL AND UNUSUAL?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1629
* Montague Professor, University of Mississippi School of Law. D.Phil., Oxford; J.D., Vanderbilt. I would
like to thank Shon Hopwood and Doug Berman, as well as Georgetown University Law Center and the NADCL
for the invitation to participate in this wonderful symposium. I also thank Tess Hamsher for her tireless work in
putting together the event. Also, many thanks to the editors of the American Criminal Law Review at Georgetown
for their excellent editing work on this Article. © 2021, William W. Berry III.
1627
A. The Federal Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1630
1. Weems and Trop. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1630
2. Differentness and the Evolving Standards . . . . . . . . . . . . 1631
3. Non-Capital, Non-JLWOP Cases. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1633
B. State Analogues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1636
II. CRUEL AND UNUSUAL NON-CAPITAL STATE PUNISHMENTS . . . . . . . . . . . 1637
A. States Adopting the Eighth Amendment Approach . . . . . . . . . . 1637
1. Arizona . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1637
2. Indiana . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1639
3. Louisiana . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1640
4. Rhode Island . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1641
B. States Using a Separate State Constitutional Approach . . . . . . 1642
1. Alaska . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1642
2. California. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1645
3. Maine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1648
4. Washington . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1649
5. West Virginia. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1650
III. CHALLENGING NON-CAPITAL PUNISHMENTS UNDER STATE CONSTITUTIONAL
ANALOGUES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1653
A. State Constitutions Are Broader Than and Different From the
Eighth Amendment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1653
B. Making Sense of the Winning Cases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1653
IV. CHALLENGING NON-CAPITAL PUNISHMENTS UNDER THE EIGHTH
AMENDMENT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1655
A. Miller Undermines Harmelin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1655
1. Differentness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1656
2. Higher Scrutiny for Non-Capital Cases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1657
B. There Must Be Some Disproportionate Punishments . . . . . . . . 1657
C. Analogizing from State Constitutional Law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1658
CONCLUSION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1658
INTRODUCTION
In the modern era, the Supreme Court has rendered the Eighth Amendment a
dead letter with respect to non-capital, non-juvenile life-without-parole sentences.
1
Its cases have erected a gross disproportionality standard that seems insurmount-
able in most cases, even for draconian and excessive sentences.
2
State courts have
adopted a similar approach in interpreting state constitutional Eighth Amendment
analogues, often f‌inding that they are no broader than the Supreme Court’s narrow
1. See Rachel E. Barkow, The Court of Life and Death: The Two Tracks of Constitutional Sentencing Law and
the Case for Uniformity, 107 MICH. L. REV. 1145, 1145, 1179–80 (2009).
2. See infra text accompanying note 10.
1628 AMERICAN CRIMINAL LAW REVIEW [Vol. 58:1627
interpretation of the Eighth Amendment, despite linguistic variations in many
cases.
3
Nonetheless, in a handful of cases, state courts have found that state punish-
ments violate the state constitutional analogue to the Eighth Amendment. This
Article examines those cases to identify which non-capital punishments have
caused courts to limit state punishment practices even in the shadow of an over-
whelming, albeit unfortunate, trend of according constitutional deference to state
punishment practices. In light of these decisions, this Article advances a series of
possible arguments by which to attack state and federal punishment practices in an
effort to create more exceptions to the draconian status quo constitutional rule.
In Part I, the Article begins by providing an overview of Eighth Amendment
gross disproportionality doctrine and its use in state constitutional analogues to the
Eighth Amendment. Part II examines the handful of state court cases that have
found punishments unconstitutionally disproportionate. In Part III, the Article
advances one set of arguments—both systemic and case-based—for use in attack-
ing non-capital state punishments under state constitutions. Part IV then advances
a second set of arguments—both systemic and case-based—for use in attacking
non-capital state punishments under the Eighth Amendment.
I. WHICH PUNISHMENTS ARE CRUEL AND UNUSUAL?
The Eighth Amendment proscribes cruel and unusual punishments.
4
The
Supreme Court has not agreed upon the def‌initional meanings of the terms “cruel”
5
and “unusual”
6
in its cases,
7
but instead has often articulated the general principle
that “[t]he basic concept underlying the Eighth Amendment is nothing less than
the dignity of man.”
8
With a few exceptions, the unfortunate approach of the Supreme Court to this
important individual right to be free from excessive punishment has generally been
3. See William W. Berry III, Cruel State Punishments, 98 N.C. L. REV. 1201, 1252 (2020).
4. U.S. CONST. amend. VIII.
5. See John F. Stinneford, The Original Meaning of “Cruel,105 GEO. L.J. 441, 444 (2017).
6. See John F. Stinneford, The Original Meaning of “Unusual”: The Eighth Amendment as a Bar to Cruel
Innovation, 102 NW. U. L. REV. 1739, 1764 (2008).
7. See Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238, 258 (1972) (per curiam); see also Corinna Barrett Lain, Furman
Fundamentals, 82 WASH. L. REV. 1, 58 (2007) (explaining that the Supreme Court has struggled to articulate
standards for imposing the death penalty). Scholars have debated whether the “and” in “cruel and unusual” is
conjunctive or acts as a hendiadys proscribing “unusually cruel” punishments. See Meghan J. Ryan, Does the
Eighth Amendment Punishments Clause Prohibit Only Punishments That Are Both Cruel and Unusual?, 87
WASH. U. L. REV. 567, 569 (2010) (arguing for the conjunctive reading); Samuel L. Bray, “Necessary and
Proper” and “Cruel and Unusual”: Hendiadys in the Constitution, 102 VA. L. REV. 687, 695, 712 (2016)
(arguing for the hendiadys reading); Stinneford, supra note 5, at 468 n.167 (criticizing the hendiadys reading).
Indeed, multiple readings of the “and” are possible.
8. Trop v. Dulles, 356 U.S. 86, 100 (1958); Meghan J. Ryan, Taking Dignity Seriously: Excavating the
Backdrop of the Eighth Amendment, 2016 U. ILL. L. REV. 2129, 2131–32 (2016).
2021] CRUEL AND UNUSUAL NON-CAPITAL PUNISHMENTS 1629

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