On March 15, 1981, Fernando Belmontes burglarized the house of 19-year-old Steacy McConnell. Brief for Petitioner at 2. Upon finding McConnell at home, Belmontes struck her several times in the head with a metal dumbbell...
eighth amendment
In March 1996, Russell Bucklew followed his former girlfriend, Stephanie Ray, to the trailer home of Michael Sanders, where she was living. Bucklew v. Precythe (“Precythe”) at 1–2. Bucklew entered the trailer and shot Sanders. Id. While Sanders bled to...
Civil forfeiture occurs when the government seizes property under suspicion of its involvement in illegal activity. Such a proceeding is conducted in rem, or against the property itself, rather than in personam, or against the owner of the...
Cruel and unusual punishment is a phrase mentioned in the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Specifically, the Eighth Amendment prohibits cruel and unusual punishment. However, the Constitution does not give more guidance than that,...
Congress, as well as any state legislature, may prescribe the death penalty, also known as capital punishment, for capital offenses. The Supreme Court has ruled that the death penalty does not violate the Eighth Amendment's ban on cruel and...
Oklahoma has effectuated its death penalty for many years by injecting three different chemical compounds into the inmate’s cardiovascular system. See Warner v. Oklahoma, 776 F.3d 721, 724–25 (10th Cir. 2015). Historically, the procedure has consisted...
Petitioner, Terrance Jamar Graham ("Graham"), is a twenty-two-year-old man serving a sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole in the State of Florida. See Brief for Petitioner Terrance Jamar Graham (“Graham”)...
On September 9, 1982, the governor of Florida signed Freddie Lee Hall's death warrant for the murder of Karol Hurst, after Hall was tried and convicted in Putnam County and the Florida Supreme Court upheld the conviction. See Hall v. State, 109...
On May 2, 1998, Cynthia Lee Harrison was killed at a Popeye’s Fried Chicken restaurant in Escambia County, Florida, where she worked as an assistant manager. See Hurst v. Florida, No. SC12-1947, at 2 (Fla. 2014). Following a jury trial, Timothy Lee...
The incorporation doctrine is a constitutional doctrine through which the first ten amendments of the United States Constitution (known as the Bill of Rights) are made applicable to the states through the Due Process clause of the Fourteenth...