Reason

Devolving Standards of Decency

FEDERAL CIRCUIT judge wants the Supreme Court to scrap a longstanding test for determining what is cruel and unusual punishment. In an October speech to the Federalist Society, Reuters reported, Judge Thomas Hardiman, appointed by President George W. Bush to the Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit, advocated a “ return to the text and original meaning of the Eighth Amendment” and an end to the “evolving standards of decency” test created

You’re reading a preview, subscribe to read more.

More from Reason

Reason3 min readIntelligence (AI) & Semantics
Archives
“While pessimists fret that a new kind of intelligent automation will mean social, economic, and political upheaval, the fact is that the robots are already here and the humans are doing what we have always done in the face of change: anticipating an
Reason3 min read
Launch Approved? Not So Fast, Says Sluggish FAA
MOST AMERICANS ARE eager to see NASA astronauts return to the moon and push humanity’s boundaries with future exploration of Mars. But those sky-high ambitions are being severely grounded by the plodding pace of rocket launch approvals from the Feder
Reason3 min read
Brickbats
In England, the Dacorum Borough Council issued fines for littering to multiple men who pulled off the road in a rural area to urinate, including one with a weakened prostate. A BBC report later found the council had issued hundreds of fines for publi

Related Books & Audiobooks