Search Results for: cruel AND unusual punishment

The California Court of Appeal First Appellate District has ordered San Quentin State Prison (SQ) to reduce its population by half. The move is intended to reduce the spread of COVID-19. The Tuesday order follows a writ of habeas corpus filed by Ivan Von Staich, an inmate in the prison. Staich, 64, suffers from respiratory problems. [...]

The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled Wednesday that the Los Angeles $63 expired parking meter fine is not an “excessive fine” with the meaning of the US Eight Amendment (“Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.”) but remanded the case to the [...]

In a per curiam opinion issued Tuesday at 2 AM, the US Supreme Court vacated a preliminary injunction that had halted the executions of four federal prisoners sentenced to death for killing children. The ruling cleared the way for the federal government to resume federal executions for the first time in 17 years. US Attorney [...]

The names Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd have been spoken in virtually every American household during 2020. As the Black Lives Matter movement gains unprecedented growth and media attention, many White sympathizers are asking themselves (some for the first time): “how can I help effectuate real change?” That answer, in part, begins with [...]

The US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit on Tuesday denied Ohio death row inmate Romell Broom’s request for habeas relief and held that a second execution attempt would not constitute cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment. Ohio had previously tried to execute Broom by lethal injection in 2009, but officials were [...]

The US Supreme Court issued an Tuesday today denying the federal government’s request to block a plan to release elderly and low-risk prisoners of the Elkton Federal Correctional Institute (FCI-Elkton) due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The plan was ordered by a judge for the US District Court for the Northern District of Ohio on April [...]

The US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit held Wednesday that the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) does not have to comply with a list of COVID-19 protection measures from a lower court’s ruling last week because it is already complying with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines and the lower [...]

A Denver County Court judge ruled on Friday that Denver’s ordinance banning urban camping violates the Eighth Amendment. In his opinion, Judge Johnny C. Barajas wrote that the ordinance specifically violates the Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause, which “imposes substantive limits on what can be made criminal and punished as such.” The court cited a [...]

The Iowa Supreme Court ruled in favor of the state’s parole board in a juvenile parole case on Friday. In 2010 the US Supreme Court disallowed sentences of life without parole for juveniles convicted of non-homicide crimes in Graham v. Florida. As a result, the Iowa Supreme court decided to resentence Julio Bonilla, who had [...]

Alabama Governor Kay Ivey signed HB 379, the chemical castration bill, into law Monday. Under previous Alabama law, a sex offense committed against a child under the age of 12 was either a class A or class B felony. Class A and B felonies make an offender ineligible for parole. The new law raises the [...]