Dissent
Chief Justice White wrote a dissenting opinion, with which Justice Holmes concurred. The dissenters asserted that constitutional provisions should not be allowed to "progress" so as to include what they were not intended to include. Regarding the particular constitutional provision in question, the dissenters characterized the Court's opinion as follows: "the clause against cruel punishments, which was intended to prohibit inhumane and barbarous bodily punishments, is so construed as to limit the discretion of the lawmaking power in determining the mere severity with which punishments not of the prohibited character may be prescribed." Justices White and Holmes did not object to extending the Eighth Amendment so as to ban newly devised bodily punishments that are inhumane and barbarous; instead they contended that "the prohibition against the infliction of cruel bodily torture cannot be extended so as to limit legislative discretion in prescribing punishment for crime by modes and methods which are not embraced within the prohibition against cruel bodily punishment."
Read more about this topic: Weems V. United States
Famous quotes containing the word dissent:
“May we never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion.”
—Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969)
“The rightful claim to dissent is an existential right of the individual.”
—Friedrich Dürrenmatt (1921–1990)
“Though dissenters seem to question everything in sight, they are actually bundles of dusty answers and never conceived a new question. What offends us most in the literature of dissent is the lack of hesitation and wonder.”
—Eric Hoffer (1902–1983)