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Lost Souls: Constitutional Implications For The Deficiencies In Treatment For Persons With Mental Illness In Custody, Katherine L. Smith

Golden Gate University Law Review

This Comment explores systemic deficiencies of access to mental health care in prison systems and the Eighth Amendment implications of those deficiencies. Because the Eighth Amendment prohibits, among other things, infliction of cruel and unusual punishments, when denial of adequate mental health care results in undue suffering, the conditions of confinement may violate the Constitution. Therefore, there must be mechanisms in place to ensure necessary treatment is provided while protecting individual rights.

Part I of this Comment addresses the duty a state owes to those it incarcerates (e.g., to provide food, clothing, recreation, education, medical care) and what standards exist …

Eighth Amendment - Andrade V. Attorney General, Renee Ross

Golden Gate University Law Review

A large majority of states have enacted recidivist statutes requiring increased punishment for repeat offenders. California's controversial recidivist statute, the Three Strikes and You're Out Law (the Three Strikes Law), was approved by ballot initiative and enacted by the state legislature in 1994. Defendants have challenged the constitutionality of sentences under habitual offender statutes for at least twenty years. In Harmelin v. Helm, the United States Supreme Court addressed the constitutionality of a life sentence without the possibility of parole for a first time drug offender convicted of possession of 650 grams of cocaine. Justice Kennedy's concurrence in Harmelin set …