The Eighth Amendment. What is cruel and unusual punishment? Who gets to define and decide its boundaries? And how did the Constitution's authors imagine it might change? Today on Throughline's We the People: the Eighth Amendment, the death penalty, and what cruel and unusual really means.To access bonus episodes and listen to Throughline sponsor-free, subscribe to Throughline+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org/throughline.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy
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A note before we get started. This episode includes descriptions and discussion of violent acts, including murder and execution.
Utah, 1877. A man named Wallace Wilkerson stops by a saloon. He starts by playing a game of cards with another man named William Baxter. An argument starts. Wilkerson takes out a gun, shoots Baxter in the head, killing him, and then he flees. Wilkerson is captured. A few months later, he's convicted of murder and sentenced to be executed the next month.
Utah was not yet a state. It was a federal territory. And it was settled then, as now, by Mormons. And Brigham Young, who was the leader of the Mormons, preached that blood atonement was necessary for murders. So he didn't want to use hanging because you don't bleed when you're hanged, but you do bleed when you're shot. And so Mormon territory used the firing squad as a form of execution.
Wilkerson was sentenced to be executed by a firing squad, a sentence that was challenged all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court, which had to decide whether a firing squad violated Wallace Wilkerson's Eighth Amendment rights.
All right, here's the original text of the Eighth Amendment. Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.
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