8th grade Amendment debates

The courts refrain from inflicting the death penalty on mentally ill people, mentally retarded people, and minors. This should allow the death penalty to be handed to appropriately. “However, in Bobby v. Bies, 556 U.S. 825, (2009), the Court held that states may conduct hearings to reconsider the mental capacity of death row inmates who were labeled mentally retarded before the Court decided Atkins, because before Atkins, states had little incentive to aggressively investigate retardation claims.”

“In Roper v. Simmons, 543 U.S. 551, (2005), the Supreme Court invalidated the death penalty for all juvenile offenders. The majority opinion pointed to teenagers' lack of maturity and responsibility, greater vulnerability to negative influences, and incomplete character development. The Court concluded that juvenile offenders assume diminished culpability for their crimes.”

Here's the link you wanted and it's not just Houda's opinion, it's a very, very common opinion. Wouldn't you want retribution if someone killed your family?

It's not just from the Bible, this is also a well-known saying that everyone acknowledges and agrees with.

“"Unusual" has generally been understood to mean a punishment that is not usually associated with a particular crime but which is nonetheless applied arbitrarily in some cases. If nine of every ten jaywalkers were cited and fined $5 while the remaining one out of ten were fined $5,000, such a penalty would be "unusual."”

In Baze v. Rees (decided Apr. 16, 2008), the US Supreme Court, in a decision written by Chief Justice John G. Roberts, held that:

"Simply because an execution method may result in pain, either by accident or as an inescapable consequence of death, does not establish the sort of 'objectively intolerable risk of harm"

Did you read over mine? I reposted this one already as my rebuttal against your argument.

“The punishment of the crime must be proportionate to the crime.”

“A legislature may prescribe the manner of execution, but the manner may not inflict unnecessary or wanton pain upon the criminal. Courts apply an "objectively intolerable" test when determining if the method of execution violates the Eighth Amendment's ban on cruel and unusual punishments.” As said above, the courts can eliminate a form of death penalty if they determine it unconstitutional. If all death penalties were unconstitutional, then they’d be all gone.

Kyle Janek, MD, anesthesiologist and former Texas State Senator, in his Feb. 1, 2004 article "Attack on Texas' Lethal Injections is Bogus," published in the Houston Chronicle, wrote:

“The current argument against executions seems to hinge on the supposition that the second and 3rd drugs in this regimen would be cruel to someone who could feel them...

Yet for that argument to be valid in any way, you must ignore the 1st drug in the process - sodium pentothal - that (1) renders the inmate to be completely unconscious, (2) has been used for decades to induce anesthesia in surgical patients and (3) is given in doses far exceeding what is needed to keep the inmate from being aware or feeling anything."

“In 1947, the Court considered the case of Francis v. Resweber, who Louisiana had attempted to electrocute, but succeeded only in severely shocking and traumatizing, and who was then facing a second attempt by Louisiana to put him to death. Francis argued that the anxiety brought on by his first experience in the chair made a second seating "cruel and unusual punishment," but the Court, voting 5 to 4, found that "cruelty must be inherent in the method of punishment," and could not come from anticipation of the punishment.”