Deck 8: Eighth Amendment Issues

Question 1

Eighth Amendment applies to criminal procedures and does not apply to corporal punishment of students by school administrators.

Answer 1

True

Question 2

The primary dispute concerning the death penalty is whether it violates the prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment clause of the Eighth Amendment.

Answer 2

True

Question 3

The Supreme Court presently permits the death penalty to be used in aggravated crime cases where the offenders who were under the age of 18 when their crimes were committed.

Answer 3

False

Question 4

The Supreme Court in 2008 approved using the death penalty as a punishment for an individual who commits aggravated rape of a minor.

Question 5

The execution of mentally retarded persons does not violate the prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment contained in the Eighth Amendment if the persons are provided their due process rights.

Question 6

The theory of deterrence in capital sentencing is predicated upon the notion that the increased severity of the punishment will inhibit criminal actors from carrying out murderous conduct.

Question 7

The Supreme Court currently holds that death by firing squad amounts to cruel and unusual punishment.

Question 8

The Eighth Amendment barred Louisiana from imposing the death penalty for the rape of a child where the crime did not result, and was not intended to result, in the victim's death.

Question 9

The loss of citizenship by a native-born United States citizen as the punishment for desertion during the time of war is a permissible punishment.

Question 10

The conditions of his confinement may constitute the violation of a prisoner's constitutional rights and invoke the cruel and unusual prohibitions in the Eighth Amendment.

Question 11

The Eighth Amendment is NOT violated in a case involving a prisoner unless the prisoner suffers significant injury to his or her person.

Question 12

For convicted prisoners, all "humane conditions of confinement" claims are analyzed under the deliberate indifference standard.

Question 13

The Supreme Court has never decided whether a state was required to have a bail system.

Question 14

States are constitutionally prohibited from setting excessive bail or imposing it for improper reasons.

Question 15

The only legally permissible purpose of confinement while awaiting trial is to ensure defendant's presence at trial.

Question 16

Which of the below statements in NOT correct regarding the Eighth Amendment?

A) The death penalty has been upheld by the Supreme Court as a legally permissible punishment.
B) Some states have abolished the death penalty.
C) A state may impose the death penalty for the violent crime of rape even if the victim suffers only minor injuries.
D) All the above statements are correct.

Question 17

The most popular means of execution today in the United States is death by

A) firing squad.
B) hanging.
C) uses of the electric chair.
D) lethal injection.

Question 18

The first state to use the electric chair as a means for execution was

A) California.
B) North Carolina.
C) New York.
D) Texas.

Question 19

Robinson v. California (1962) discussed

A) the right of an alcoholic to drive.
B) a state statute that made it a criminal offense for a person to be addicted to the use of narcotics.
C) whether or not the Eighth Amendment applied to jail conditions.
D) the conditions of bail.

Question 20

In Trop v. Dulles (1958), a native-born American, was declared to have lost his United States citizenship and become stateless by reason of his conviction by court-martial for wartime desertion. Which of the below statements is correct regarding the Trop case?

A) Trop was found not guilty of wartime desertion.
B) The punishment Trop received of confinement for life was cruel and unusual.
C) The Supreme Court held that loss of his U.S. citizenship was cruel and unusual.
D) The Supreme Court held that loss of his U.S. citizenship was not cruel and unusual because he was convicted of desertion in the time of war.

Question 21

Under what circumstances has the Supreme Court determined that a death penalty was not cruel and unusual?

Question 22

What is the traditional purpose of bail?

Question 23

What is required before the court will allow order an accused held in protective custody?

Question 24

What is the test to determine if the failure to provide reasonable medical care to a prisoner is actionable under the 8^th Amendment?

Question 25

Under what circumstances is a court sentence considered as cruel and unusual?