Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.
Once again a small snippet of information written succinctly but holds a whole lot of meaning. First lets look at the rights this sentence offers the American citizen or I should say restates the rights given to all people from God. Excessive Bail shall not be required, why do you suppose that is a right of the people? Well so we are not imprisoned beyond our ability to defend ourselves from those that are putting us in prison. Now one must understand that the definition of excessive is determined by the court system and is subjective to the person’s ability to make bail but this is still an important right. I say it is important because it shows a direct limitation of government ability and reinstates the idea of having rights. Having rights is to protect the citizen, not from criminals that will not care about civil liberties but from the government itself, also this helps create a system that will always err for the citizen not the government.
Nor excessive fines imposed; this right is so that if a judge does not like a verdict he cannot ensure jail time by fining a person to the point they cannot pay arbitrarily. Now in modern society we have a fine schedule that helps in this pursuit that forces judges to abide by a universal idea of what each crime is worth, this all but eliminates the problem of excessive fines. I would also remind the reader that excessive does not mean more than what a criminal can pay but simply more than the crime was worth.
The last words of this reiterated set of rights, incredibly important and unfortunately subjective also, nor cruel and unusual punishment inflicted. The problem is who gets to make that call what is cruel, what is unusual? Would it be cruel to execute a person for killing maybe 1-5 innocent people? After all, the individual made no attempt at protecting others lives? Some think an eye for an eye is OK some do not. Would using a torture technique that has no lasting effect but is horrifying to get information that saves American lives some say that is unusual and cruel some argue it is not because it will not have any lasting effects and it saves lives. Whatever your stance the fact remains that before we as a nation use any tools or punishments we must debate this issue and stay within its guidelines, this is one of those moments that make this nation better than other nations, we follow a written demand that forces protection upon the people and that includes the accused and guilty.
Another interesting fact of this particular Amendment is that it is a set of three rules placed not on the people but restrictions placed on the government to protect the people, even the guilty. We sometimes forget that even though people have committed crimes against others and sometimes those crimes are horrific the guilty are still human beings and afforded the care and the rights of all human beings. So even after a guilty verdict we as fellow humans need to offer these guilty a specified treatment and we must keep our humanity even if they have given up theirs.
Now for the record I do not mean allow anybody to attack anybody else and not defend yourself, the whole purpose of a set of human rights is that you as an individual are important and your life matters and therefore when someone is attacking you no matter the reason or profession one has a right to defend oneself. This includes Police, Prison officials, Firemen and basically any government employee also. Yet once the crime has been committed, we as a people must still act within our own rules of conduct in the treatment of these individuals.