Harrison, Mardi: American Jurisprudence Second

The rule that a death sentence is cruel and unusual under the Eighth Amendment if it is imposed without an individualized determination that the death penalty is appropriate does not apply to require such an individualized determination in imposing a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment without parole.2Statutes imposing life imprisonment upon habitual criminals have been upheld.3The imposition of a life sentence under a statute which does not identify aggravating and mitigating circumstances to be considered in determining whether to impose a life sentence does not violate the Eighth Amendment.

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21A Am. Jur. 2d Criminal Law § 901

The Eighth and 14th Amendments forbid the imposition of the death penalty on offenders who were under the age of 18 when their crimes were committed.1 The supreme court found evidence of national consensus against the death penalty for juveniles, based on the rejection of the juvenile death penalty in the majority of states, the infrequency of its use even where it remains on the books, and the consistency in the trend toward abolition of the practice.2 In the exercise of its own independent judgment, the court concluded that neither retribution nor deterrence provides adequate justification for imposing the death penalty on juvenile offenders.3

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21A Am. Jur. 2d Criminal Law § 886

A mitigating circumstance is one which may be regarded as extenuating or reducing the moral culpability of the offense or making it less deserving of the death penalty than other such offenses, or making the defendant less deserving of the death penalty than other defendants. Mitigating circumstances include those circumstances of a defendant's background and character which will support the belief, long held by society, that defendants who commit criminal acts which are attributable to such circumstances may be less culpable than defendants who have no such excuses.

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21A Am. Jur. 2d Criminal Law § 894

Proscriptions of cruel and unusual punishment are generally aimed at atrocious or obsolete punishment rather than at the duration of prison sentences. Nevertheless, a sentence is cruel and unusual if it is grossly out of proportion to the severity of the crime.

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21A Am. Jur. 2d Criminal Law § 900