Eight Amendment
...took effect on December 15, 1791, after a three fourths of the states ratified the bill. This amendment prohibits the federal government from imposing excessive bail, excessive fines, and cruel and unusual punishment. It is almost identical to a provision in the English Bill of Rights of 1689, in which parliament declared that excessive bail ought not be required, nor excessive fines imposed , nor cruel and unusual punishment inflicted. The state of Virginia had adopted this section of the English Bill of Rights in the VIrginia Declaration of rights of 1776, and the Virginia convention that ratified the US Constitution recommended in 1778 that this language also be included in the federal constitution. On September 25, 1789, James Madison proposed this amendment to Congress thus creating our eight amendment.
The excessive bail provision of the eight amendment to the united States constitution is based on an old English common law right of Englishmen and the English Bill of RIghts. In pre independence america, bail law was based on English law. Some of the colonies simply guaranteed their subjects the protections that they would have in Britain. However in 1776, after the declaration of Independence, colonies abandoned that of British law and enacted their own versions of bail law. In the Virginia 1776 constitution it stated excessive bail ought not be required, but in 1785 they added that those shall be let to bail who are apprehended for any crime not punishable in life or limb, but if a crime be punishable by life or limb, or if it be manslaughter and there be good cause to believe the party guilty thereof, he shall not be admitted to bail. The eight amendment is directly derived form this and the cases that are available for bail have changed over the years. In 178p the Judiciary Act was passed. This act stated that all non capital crimes are bailable and...
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