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Full-Text Articles in Law
The Original Meaning Of "Unusual": The Eighth Amendment As A Bar To Cruel Innovation, John F. Stinneford
The Original Meaning Of "Unusual": The Eighth Amendment As A Bar To Cruel Innovation, John F. Stinneford
John F. Stinneford
In recent years, both legal scholars and the American public have become aware that something is not quite right with the Supreme Court's Eighth Amendment jurisprudence. Legal commentators from across the spectrum have described the Court's treatment of the Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause as "embarrassing," "ineffectual and incoherent," a "mess," and a "train wreck." The framers of the Bill of Rights understood the word "unusual" to mean "contrary to long usage." Recognition of the word's original meaning will precisely invert the "evolving standards of decency" test and ask the Court to compare challenged punishments with the longstanding principles and …
Punishment Without Culpability, John F. Stinneford
Punishment Without Culpability, John F. Stinneford
John F. Stinneford
For more than half a century, academic commentators have criticized the Supreme Court for failing to articulate a substantive constitutional conception of criminal law. Although the Court enforces various procedural protections that the Constitution provides for criminal defendants, it has left the question of what a crime is purely to the discretion of the legislature. This failure has permitted legislatures to evade the Constitution’s procedural protections by reclassifying crimes as civil causes of action, eliminating key elements (such as mens rea) or reclassifying them as defenses or sentencing factors, and authorizing severe punishments for crimes traditionally considered relatively minor. The …
Incapacitation Through Maiming: Chemical Castration, The Eighth Amendment, And The Denial Of Human Dignity, John F. Stinneford
Incapacitation Through Maiming: Chemical Castration, The Eighth Amendment, And The Denial Of Human Dignity, John F. Stinneford
John F. Stinneford
This year marks the tenth anniversary of California's enactment of the nation's first chemical castration law. This law requires certain sex offenders to receive, as part of their punishment, long-term pharmacological treatment involving massive doses of a synthetic female hormone called medroxyprogesterone acetate (MPA). MPA treatment is described as chemical castration because it mimics the effect of surgical castration by eliminating almost all testosterone from the offender's system. The intended effect of MPA treatment is to alter brain and body function by reducing the brain's exposure to testosterone, thus depriving offenders of most (or all) capacity to experience sexual desire …