Munch on this for a bit

Where exactly does the idea that we should not allow 'cruel and unusual punishments' come from? Turns out that it's the Eighth Amendment - Further Guarantees in Criminal Cases .

Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

That's all of it (all sixteen words). There's a lot of other discussion about those sixteen words though.

Why the sudden interest? Hit & Run linked to an essay by Vanderbilt Professor Joan Dayan which links the White House memos regarding prisoner interrogation methods (and subsequent behavior at Abu Ghraib) with a long term backslide in judicial support for Eighth Amendment protection.

The article is a valuable history and analyses of the amendment and even includes a few cases I actually remember, such as...

And in the most famous Eighth Amendment case, Furman v. Georgia (1972), the Supreme Court declared capital punishment cruel and unusual, and therefore unconstitutional. In Justice William Brennan's words, the system of capital punishment was "irrational and arbitrary," was "degrading to human dignity," and deprived the criminal of "human status." The Court voted 5-4 to strike down every capital punishment law in the United States.

After reading it all, the first comment on Cruel and Usual seems to make more sense; for some of the judges on today's court, the constitution does seem to be 'dead'. Using 18th century dictionaries to determine the meaning of the word 'punishment'? That it was Clarence Thomas who took that route is even more difficult to accept. Perhaps he should have looked under the word 'slave' while he was at it.

There's also an interesting section on slavery, the black codes and the debates about the 13th Amendment (diving into one amendment per day is more than enough I think) which contained...

As Charles Sumner warned, the locale for enslavement would move from the auction block to the courts of the United States.

No, I'm not done munchin' at all.