Law in Contemporary Society

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JustinColannino-SecondPaper 23 - 09 May 2008 - Main.AdamCarlis
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  • But we are not there, we are here. In our case, proportionality as a concept must be read out of language used in 1689 in the Bill of Rights, and copied into American constitutions, including the Federal Bill of Rights, that "cruel and unusual punishments shall not be inflicted," which grounds two other meanings of proportionality: that punishment shall not reach an absolute limit of inhumanity that constitutes cruelty, and that it must not be meted out inequitably, so that some people are punished unusually.
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    • Another possible reading of "unusual," that I have some affinity for, is that it means "uncommon" or "not regularly meted out." While losing some of the individual protection that the "inequity" interpretation provides, it would serve as an absolute bar to some of the punishments that our system only rarely uses (the death penalty being a prime example). -- AdamCarlis 8 May 2008
 

Consequences of a constitutional protection against disproportionate sentences.


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Revision 22r22 - 08 May 2008 - 20:02:57 - EbenMoglen
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