The United States Constitution was created in September 17, 1787 to replace the Articles of Confederation. Due to arguments between the Federalists and the Anti-Federalists, the two groups decided to add amendments to the Constitution to appease the Anti-Federalists. The condition was that two-thirds of the states had to approve the amendment before it’s added to the constitution. These conditions are still held today and there are now 27 amendments. Amendments in the constitution are important because they give natural rights to people.
The Eighth Amendment was ratified on December 15, 1791 and was introduced by James Madison. The United States Constitution states that the eighth amendment “Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive
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The first part is “Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed”, and the second part “nor cruel and unusual punishments.” For the first part it is because bail is used to encourage the idea that everyone is innocent until proven guilty, the court is not allowed to impose any unwarranted payments in money or property. It’s also to help make sure that bail is affordable for everyone and not made just the top one percent can pay bail. For the second part it is mainly because of Titus Oates gave out unnecessary inhumane punishments out to the wrong people. Due to this the second part of the eighth amendment prevents the state and federal governments from handing out cruel and unusual punishments to criminals. Although, the term “cruel and unusual punishment” is constantly changing as society develops. For example when the amendment was first made cruel and unusual punishment at the time was being burned at the stake or being tortured. Today cruel and unusual punishment can include the death penalty and it was not until a little after the 1970s when the death penalty was considered a part of cruel and unusual punishment.
The main use of the eighth amendment in court is for cruel and unusual punishment. Some cases that use the eighth amendment are the Roper v. Simmons, Hudson v. McMillian, and the Woodson v. North