Menu
Idea

Eighth Amendment

Back out to Bill of Rights
13
View on Map
Filter by:

Filter by published date

Anti-death penalty protesters standing outside the Supreme Court.

The Hollowing of the Eighth Amendment

The Supreme Court’s Republican majority has been quietly rolling back a longstanding consensus over cruel and unusual punishment.
by Duncan Hosie via New York Review of Books on June 18, 2024

Executing 'Idiots'

Would the Founders have protected people we execute now?
by Michael Clemente via The Marshall Project on July 27, 2015
White men strapping a Black man into an electric chair.
original

Matters of Life and Death

Systemic racism and capital punishment have long been intertwined in Virginia, the South, and the nation.
by Janis Parker on July 10, 2024
Old gas chamber, with two chairs

Execution By Gas has a Brutal 100-Year History. Now it’s Back.

An Alabama man faces execution by nitrogen gas—the first U.S. execution by gas in a quarter-century, 100 years after the practice began.
by Randy Dotinga via Retropolis on January 24, 2024
A red gun and blue gun pointing in opposite directions, with flags spelling "We"

Originalism, Divided

The theory has not provided the clarity some of its early proponents had hoped it would.
by Harry Litman via The Atlantic on May 25, 2021

Cruel and Usual

Proponents believe lethal injection to be a medical marvel, but in reality it’s junk science.
by Jackie Roche, Liliana Segura via The Nib on October 1, 2018

Why Does the U.S. Sentence Children to Life in Prison?

No other nation sentences people to die in prison for offenses committed as minors.
by Katie Rose Quandt via JSTOR Daily on January 31, 2018

What the Prisoners’ Rights Movement Owes to the Black Muslims of the 1960s

Black Muslims have been an influential force in the prisoners' rights movement and criminal justice reform.
by Christopher E. Smith, Livia Gershon via JSTOR Daily on January 22, 2018
Chief Justice John Roberts.

The Supreme Court Has Murdered the Constitution

America’s founding document is now an all-but-meaningless scrap of paper. Happy Fourth!
by Ryan Cooper via The American Prospect on July 4, 2024
Execution Chamber with restraining bed
partner

50 Years Ago, a SCOTUS Decision Placed a Moratorium on Executions. It's Time to Revive it

Fifty years ago in 1972, as spring faded and summer arrived in late June, America (and the world) was a vastly different place.
by Rick Halperin via HNN on June 28, 2022

9/11 was a Test. The Books of the Last Two Decades Show How America Failed.

The books of the last two decades show how overreacting to the attacks unmade America’s values.
by Carlos Lozada via Washington Post on September 3, 2021

The Rise of the Victims’-Rights Movement

How a conservative agenda and a feminist cause came together to transform criminal justice.
by Jill Lepore via The New Yorker on May 15, 2018
Members of the 1976 United States Supreme Court, led by Chief Justice Warren Burger, center.

It’s Been 40 Years Since the Supreme Court Tried to Fix the Death Penalty— Here’s How It Failed

A close look at the grand compromise of 1976.
by Evan Mandery via The Marshall Project on March 30, 2016

Filter Results:

Suggested Filters:

Idea

brought to you by
© Bunk History