On this blog I've talked about a few different constitutional provisions that your Denver criminal defense lawyer might use in an effort to help your case. There is the right to have every element of your case proven beyond a reasonable doubt. There is also the Fourth Amendment, which means the police need a warrant and probable cause to search you. Otherwise the evidence cannot be introduced at trial. In this post I'm going to talk about one right that your Denver criminal defense lawyer will never use in your case. That is the 8th Amendment's rule against cruel and unusual punishment.
Even if nobody can really be certain what the Founding Fathers meant when they created an amendment, we can try. Based on the time of the Founding, we know that there were a few pretty nasty punishment practices. Tarring and feathering, which was basically just a slow way to die. You didn't die because of some direct mechanism like a needle or electric chair. You died because the tar clogged your pores and made it so you couldn't sweat. Probably pretty damn painful. Drawing and quartering was a classic method of execution. That meant you got sliced up and four horses pulled your body apart. These are barbaric, and we wouldn't tolerate them even if there was no constitution.
In fact, basically the only punishment back then was death. The idea of putting bad people in one place didn't really get traction until the middle of the 19th century. So what can we glean from cruel and unusual punishment as far as putting people in prison? Basically, the Supreme Court says nothing. A bunch of people have tried to challenge three strikes laws which put folks in prison for life for doing stuff like stealing golf clubs. That didn't work. The Supreme Court said basically a state can put people in prison for doing anything. One judge said it might be cruel and unusual to give somebody life in prison for a parking ticket. Key word there is "might." So it might even be OK too.
Otherwise, the Supreme Court has said there are a few reasons it's not OK to execute a criminal. No state can execute people under 18, for example. No state can execute somebody who did something other than murder (Louisiana thought child rape was a capital offense, but the Supreme Court said no). You also can't execute people who are mentally retarded. The definition of mentally retarded is up for some debate, but most of the people in the cases have intelligence approximately equal to a seven year old. Even that might not be enough to get you acquitted, since Texas executed a few murderers who still believe in Santa Claus.
So basically, if you aren't accused of a capital offense, the 8th Amendment does nothing for you (until we start locking people up for life for parking tickets, that is). Why will your Denver criminal defense lawyer probably never use this as a defense? Well, it doesn't really matter how bad the crime is. The state of Colorado does not really execute people. Since the death penalty was reinstated in 1977, Colorado has executed one person, in 1997. I didn't look up the case, but I'd be willing to bet he waived some appeals, or did a particularly incredibly heinous crime. That means unless you want to die, you probably won't be facing the death penalty in Colorado (you might end up on death row, but that's really just a wing of a prison in Canon City, not a place where people are actually executed). And if you are on death row, well, this probably isn';t the best place to be researching your case. Try Westlaw.
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