{"id":2317,"date":"2010-07-19T02:24:22","date_gmt":"2010-07-19T09:24:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=2317"},"modified":"2010-07-19T02:24:22","modified_gmt":"2010-07-19T09:24:22","slug":"constitutional-amendments-article-viii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2010\/07\/19\/constitutional-amendments-article-viii\/","title":{"rendered":"Constitutional Amendments: Article VIII"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"constitution\"<\/a> <\/font><\/p>\n

We have been covering the US Constitution line by line.  When Republicans wave their paper props and parrot their vile machinations, we will be prepared to expose the lies.  We have finished the main body of the Constitution.  Now we continue with the Amendments.  You can find the last article on the main body of the Constitution<\/font> here<\/a>. It has links to all the others.  The text comes from<\/font> The US Constitution<\/a>.  Previous articles in the Amendment series:<\/font><\/p>\n

Article I<\/font><\/a><\/h6>\n
Articles II and III<\/font><\/a><\/h6>\n
Article IV<\/font><\/a><\/h6>\n
Article V<\/font><\/a><\/h6>\n
Article VI<\/font><\/a><\/h6>\n
Article VII<\/font><\/a><\/h6>\n

 <\/p>\n

Article [VIII]<\/h3>\n
\n

Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The Eighth Amendment is pretty straightforward.  Exactly what constitutes \u201cexcessive\u201d is purely subjective.  The interpretation has changed over time and will continue to do so.  There can be no doubt that torture is cruel and unusual punishment, and that adds the Eighth to the list of things in the Constitution that Republicans have violated.<\/font><\/p>\n

The controversy in this Amendment arises over capital punishment.  In my opinion, it has been constitutional for most of our national history, but is rapidly becoming unconstitutional.  To be unconstitutional a punishment must be both cruel and unusual.  Few things are more cruel than snuffing out the life of defenseless individuals, regardless of what crimes  they may have committed, unless it is mandatory to preserve public safety.  Life imprisonment without possibility of parole removes that mandate.  Nevertheless, for most of our nations history, capital punishment has been the usual means for dealing with the most egregious crimes, worldwide.  However that is changing.  Virtually every civilized nation on earth has outlawed the death penalty.  Only eighteen nations executed prisoners in 2009.  The US ranked fifth behind only China, Iran, Iraq and Saudi Arabia.  Therefore capital punishment is unusual as well.  There are other constitutional issues surrounding capital punishment, but they do not involve this Amendment.  Republicans favor expansion of capital punishment and elimination of the rights of criminal defendants in capital cases.<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We have been covering the US Constitution line by line.  When Republicans wave their paper props and parrot their vile machinations, we will be prepared to expose the lies.  We have finished the main body of the Constitution.  Now we continue with the Amendments.  You can find the last article on the main body of […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2317","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-editorial","category-politics","category-19-id","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2317","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2317"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2317\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}