Eighth Amendment to play major role in upcoming high court term

Criminal Procedure

By Timothy P. O’Neill

Timothy P. O’Neill is the Edward T. and Noble W. Lee Chair in Constitutional Law for 2014-15 at The John Marshall Law School in Chicago. Readers are invited to visit his Web log and archives at jmls.edu/oneill.

Posted October 1, 2015 3:40 PM

With the U.S. Supreme Court beginning its new term, it is time to ask what we can look forward to in the area of criminal procedure.SCOTUSblog, the authoritative website for all things Supreme Court, recently noted that of the 34 cases the court had agreed to review as of August, five involved Eighth Amendment issues. SCOTUSblog predicts that this will be the biggest Eighth Amendment year at the court since it brought back the death penalty in Gregg v. Georgia in 1976.Certainly the court ended its previous term by showing …

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