{"id":6501,"date":"2014-09-26T09:46:24","date_gmt":"2014-09-26T17:46:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/?p=6501"},"modified":"2021-09-26T00:16:58","modified_gmt":"2021-09-26T07:16:58","slug":"disjunctive-jam-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/?p=6501","title":{"rendered":"Disjunctive Jam-Up"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Eight Amendment to the Constitution of the United States declares<\/p> <blockquote>Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel <u>and<\/u> unusual punishments inflicted.<\/blockquote> <p>(Underscore mine.) The constitution of the state of California has a much more complex discussion of <em>bail<\/em>; but its Article 1, &#167;17 declares<\/p> <blockquote>Cruel <u>or<\/u> unusual punishment may not be inflicted or excessive fines imposed.<\/blockquote> <p>(Underscore mine.) Plainly these words are an adaptation from the <abbr title=\"United States\" style=\"font-size: inherit ;\">US<\/abbr> Constitution.<\/p> <p>The replacement of <q>and<\/q> with <q>or<\/q> was apparently to indicate that <em>cruel<\/em> punishment were not to be deemed acceptable simply by virtue of being <em>usual<\/em>.  Indeed, Article 1, &#167;17 of the constitution of the state of <em>Florida<\/em> used to declare<\/p> <blockquote>Excessive fines, cruel <u>or<\/u> unusual punishment, attainder, forfeiture of estate, indefinite imprisonment, and unreasonable detention of witnesses are forbidden.<\/blockquote> <p>(underscore mine) and the state supreme court made just that interpretation in cases of the death penalty. (The section has since been radically revised.)<\/p> <p>However, a hypothetical problem arises from the replacement.  Just as <em>cruel<\/em> punishment is not acceptable regardless of whether it is <em>unusual<\/em>, <em>unusual<\/em> punishment is not acceptable regardless of whether it is <em>cruel<\/em>.  And, if most or all <em>prevailing<\/em> punishments were <em>cruel<\/em>, then punishment of any other sort were <em>unusual<\/em>; and <em>unusual<\/em> punishment has been forbidden.  Thus, under such circumstance, <em>all<\/em> punishment were forbidden!<\/p> <p>This problem may not be <em>merely<\/em> hypothetical, in the context of problems such as prison over-crowding. (Of course, when push comes to <em>shove<\/em>, lawyers and judges tend to <em>shove<\/em> logic out the door.)<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Eight Amendment to the Constitution of the United States declares Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted. (Underscore mine.) The constitution of the state of California has a much more complex discussion of bail; but its Article 1, &#167;17 declares Cruel or unusual punishment may [&hellip;]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,9,4],"tags":[628,1231,1230,1232,302,625],"class_list":["post-6501","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commentary","category-ideology-philosophy","category-public","tag-bill-of-rights","tag-california","tag-constitutions","tag-florida","tag-logic","tag-u-s-constitution"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6501","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6501"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6501\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11826,"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6501\/revisions\/11826"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}