Quotes About Cruel And Unusual Punishment

“My group has to do the Eighth Amendment, which is the one about cruel and unusual punishment. I'm not sure why group work isn't counted in that amendment.”

— Kirstin Cronn-Mills

“My arithmetic is fine, thank you, Nicole snapped. Her arithmetic from what she'd seen was a damn sight better than that of any local without a counting board in front of him. The Romans, naturally enough, used and thought in terms of Roman numerals, and Roman numerals were to arithmetic what cruel and unusual punishment was to jurisprudence.”

— Judith Tarr

“He had done regular live concerts from San Quentin jail until the civil rights people got him under the Cruel and Unusual Punishment clause.”

— Terry Pratchett

“I'd forgotten to keep blasting a song in my mind. I remedied my mistake, but the lyrics to "Do You Really Want to Hurt Me" seemed too close to home at the mo-ment.
"Culture Club?" Now his mouth curled downward. "And you accuse me of practicing cruel and unusual punishment.”

— Jeaniene Frost

“It's absolutely clear that whatever cruel and unusual punishments may - may mean with regard to future things, such as death by injection or the electric chair, it's clear that - that the death penalty, in and of itself, is not considered cruel and unusual punishment.”

— Antonin Scalia

“The Constitution bans cruel and unusual punishment," I told him when he
stepped down from the podium.
"What?" he innocently asked. "Getting you out of the library? I believe it's
due time, Sentinel."
"Now that I'm a real, live vampire?"
"Something like that,”

— Chloe Neill

“We either believe in the dignity of the individual, the rule of law, and the prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment, or we don't. There is no middle ground.”

— Leon Panetta

“I promised her we'd be quick, and Ben and I slipped away, just in time to hear Senator Blaine clear his throat and say, "So, Sage ... what if any personal views about women do you have that might interfere with your obligation to treat Rayna with the respect that she deserves?"
"He may have faced down swarms of crazed New Age militants," I whispered to Ben, "but I bet this is his first Senate confirmation hearing."
"It's cruel and unusual punishment, Clea,"Ben said, smiling, "but I like it.”

— Hilary Duff

“The Constitution has to be interpreted loosely, otherwise it becomes a straitjacket. You can't interpret it literally. You can pretend to, and go digging around in 18th Century dictionaries to figure out what 'cruel and unusual punishment' meant or what the 'right to bear arms' meant, but that is all fake really. The Constitution has to be interpreted in light of modern needs, and that's what they (the strict interpreters) end up doing in spite of all their investigations.”

— Richard Posner

“Today the Internal Revenue Code constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. A flat tax would be an enormous step forward.”

— Arlen Specter

“By creating false environment of a war on drugs, and cruel and unusual punishment with these crimes, 50% of our U.S. population is in jail without having hurt anybody, mostly for drugs.”

— Oliver Stone

“[B]y requiring that an execution be relatively painless, we necessarily protect the inmate from enduring any punishment that is comparable to the suffering inflicted on his victim. This trend, while appropriate and required by the Eighth Amendment's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment, actually undermines the very premise on which public approval of the retribution rationale is based.”

— John Paul Stevens

“The government considers the aborting of innocent unborn children a natural right. Yet, there is widespread debate still about whether the death penalty for convicted murderers is "cruel and unusual punishment."”

— Joseph Farah

“Back in pre-Revolutionary America cruel and unusual punishment meant the rack and burning at the stake ... in more recent rulings it has been taken to mean the absence of cable television and denial of sex-change operations, or just overcrowding in the prisons.”

— Tom Clancy

“With respect to the death penalty, I believe that a majority of the Supreme Court will one day accept that when the state punishes with death, it denies the humanity and dignity of the victim and transgresses the prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. That day will be a great day for our country, for it will be a great day for our Constitution.”

— William J. Brennan