NCJ Number
138836
Date Published
1992
Length
24 pages
Annotation
This report describes several U.S. Supreme Court decisions from the 1990-92 term that affected the law of sentencing and corrections.
Abstract
The decision in Payne v. Tennessee partially overruled Booth v. Maryland when it held that evidence about a victim's personal characteristics and the impact of a crime on a murder victim's family is admissible in a capital sentencing hearing. In Harmelin v. Michigan, the Court upheld a mandatory sentence to life in prison without possibility of parole for the crime of possessing more than 650 grams of cocaine. Wilson v. Seiter held that conditions of confinement in a prison cannot be considered cruel and unusual unless prison officials acted with deliberate indifference in maintaining those conditions within the prison. Hudson v. McMillain was a case in which the Court held that the use of force against an inmate need not cause a "significant injury" to violate the eighth amendment. In Rufo v. Inmates of the Suffolk County Jail, the Court outlined the standards to be applied when modifying consent decrees that govern the operations of prisons or jails. Descriptions of other cases and decisions