Cruel and Unusual Punishment

The Eighth Amendment has had its greatest impact on procedural criminal law in capital cases. There the Supreme Court has required a process that guarantees an individualized sentencing decision to avoid arbitrary and capricious death sentences. The Supreme Court has rejected attempts to extend this requirement to noncapital cases, even those involving a maximum sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole (Harmelin). Presumably, the imposition of penal norms upon an incompetent defendant would also be considered cruel and unusual. The Eighth Amendment alone, however, would not prohibit the conviction—or even the execution—of an innocent person, assuming the impositional process satisfied due process requirements (Herrera v. Collins, 506 U.S. 390 (1993)).