Monday, September 12, 2011
Quarter 1, Week 3: The 8th Amendment
The 8th Amendment protects Americans against cruel and unusual punishment. However, like some of the amendments we have discussed already, it does not explicitly state what constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. What do you think makes punishment cruel and unusual? Is this amendment necessary in our legal system today? Do we need to make it more specific? EXPLAIN YOURSELVES!
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4 comments:
A freedom to speak is nessecary, if it wasn't there it would constitute fear in the Amercian people to speak out literally against their country. But what makes something a cruel punishment is the reaction i suppose, yelling fire in a theatre, for example. If we make it specific, we will have a never ending amendment too, so really lets keep it simple an respect one another?
There is no defined line that makes punishment cruel or unusual. However based on society’s reaction to a particular punishment you can tell if something crosses that line. This amendment is completely necessary to keep constant and fair prosecutions. On that note there is no way to make this law specific enough to fit every situation. Because of this, just like most amendments Americans must figure out what this law means based on what we stand for. Therefor we will never have a clear understanding of what this amendment means but it should always follow the expectations of the American people.
I believe that the statement cruel and unusual is a bit vague in today's day and age. I believe the statement means: lets say a psychopath commits murder in a way that leaves the public outraged. This law means that even if the psycho's penalty was death, we couldn't kill them in the same manner that they murdered, because it makes us as bad as the psycho.
I think that it is and isn'y a good idea for this amendment. There are a lot of people who don't know exactly what cruel and unusual might be and there are people that do. The people that don't might not think it's necessary because they might have a bunch of different ideas to what it might exactly mean. I think that this amendment is necessary because it protects you from eactly what it is saying cruel and unusual punishments. However people need to be aware of exaxctly what is cruel and unusual in the law system.
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