The Eighth Amendment's Prohibitions:

The Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution contains the prohibitions against excessive bail and fines and cruel and unusual punishment. It states:

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

The Eighth Amendment is the shortest of the sections of the Bill of Rights applicable to criminal law. It is quite simple, but has been the subject of an abundance of rulings by the United States Supreme Court due to the arguably vague nature of its prohibitions.

The Amendment prohibits the imposition of “excessive” bail or fines. This means, in practice, that the requirement of bail that may be placed on a defendant in a criminal prosecution must be limited to an amount necessary to ensure his appearance at the remainder of the criminal proceedings against him. The prohibition against excessive fines essentially requires that a defendant be fined only to the extent necessary to ensure that the Government’s interests in prosecuting the criminal defendant are met. Some of the interests put forth by the government as justifications for criminal prosecutions are: the punishment of the defendant, the prevention of any future criminal behavior by this defendant or any other individual, and rehabilitation.

Finally, the Eighth Amendment contains the prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. This prohibition has been used most often to prohibit the methods of execution for capital (death penalty) cases. In particular, it has been used to prohibit the use of hanging and electrocution as methods of execution. Fairly regularly, cases are argued before the Supreme Court of the United States with regard to the death penalty and the prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.

We hope you have enjoyed some brief information about the Constitution and, in particular, the Bill of Rights as applied to criminal investigations and prosecutions over the last few weeks!