cruel and unusual punishment

Cruel and unusual punishment is an excessive penalty that is disproportionate to the crime committed, an act of retribution that causes deliberate pain or suffering, and/or conditions that violate basic human rights standards. The Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution prohibits cruel and unusual punishment in the United States. However, the Constitution does not provide clear context for this; therefore, courts (and particularly the U.S. Supreme Court) have heard many cases on cruel and unusual punishment and have established evolving standards on the prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment, primarily related incarceration.

Proportionality of Sentence

In Solem v. Helm, 463 U.S. 277 (1983), the Supreme Court held that a sentence may not be disproportionate to the crime committed, regardless of whether the crime is a felony or a misdemeanor. To measure proportionality, the court must look at several factors, including:

The severity of the offense,
The harshness of the penalty,
The sentences imposed on others within the same jurisdiction, and
The sentences imposed on others in different jurisdictions.

The Supreme Court later overturned this prohibition on disproportionate sentences in Harmelin v. Michigan, 501 U.S. 957 (1991), but stated, in dicta, that in extreme cases, a disproportionate sentence could violate the Eighth Amendment. This approach was later applied in Lockyer v. Andrade, 538 U.S. 63 (2003), holding that a gross proportionality requirement is only available in “exceedingly rare” and “extreme cases.”

Age

The Supreme Court considers age when determining the constitutionality of incarceration. In Graham v. Florida, 560 U.S. 48 (2010), the Supreme Court held that it is unconstitutional to sentence a juvenile non-homicide offender to life imprisonment without parole. Further, if a court does impose a life sentence, it must also provide the offender with a "realistic opportunity to obtain release." In Miller v. Alabama, 567 U.S. 460 (2012), the Supreme Court expanded on Graham, holding that life imprisonment without parole is unconstitutional for juvenile homicide offenders as well.

Custodial Violence

In Ingraham v. Wright, 430 U.S. 651 (1977), the Supreme Court stated that the “unnecessary and wanton infliction of pain” constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. This standard was refined in Whitley v. Albers, 475 U.S. 312 (1986), in which the Supreme Court decided that some actions that may seem like an unconstitutional “unnecessary and wanton infliction of pain” may in fact be constitutional if the infliction of pain is done in a good-faith effort to restore discipline, rather than done maliciously to cause harm.

Using this standard, the Supreme Court determined that an incarcerated person’s Eighth Amendment rights were violated in Hope v. Pelzer, 536 U.S. 730 (2002). In this case, the incarcerated person was handcuffed to a hitching post for seven hours, taunted, and denied bathroom breaks. The Court discerned that this treatment exceeded what was necessary to restore order.

In Hudson v McMillian, 503 U.S. 1 (1992), the Supreme Court held that an incarcerated person does not need to experience significant injury by correctional officers to experience an Eighth Amendment violation. Rather, if the officers act maliciously and sadistically to extrajudicially punish an incarcerated person, then they have violated the incarcerated person’s Eighth Amendment rights against cruel and unusual punishment.

Conditions of Confinement

Deliberate Indifference

In Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U.S. 97 (1976), the Supreme Court ruled that the Eighth Amendment also covers factors related to an incarcerated person's confinement. A correctional officer’s deliberate indifference to an incarcerated person's serious illness or injury constitutes cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment.

Overcrowding

In Brown v. Plata, 563 U.S. 493 (2011), the Supreme Court held that prison overcrowding in California was unconstitutional because the living conditions resulted in health and medical care violations. The Court stated that incarcerated individuals would suffer and could possibly die if they did not receive adequate medical care.

[Last reviewed in May of 2026 by the Wex Definitions Team]

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