2861, 53 L.Ed.2d 982 (1977); Enmund v. Florida, 458 U.S. 782, 102 S.Ct. (plurality opinion), it does not foreclose all of them, since there remain the possibilities of retroactive legislative reduction and executive clemency. § 113(d), unauthorized reproduction of the "Smokey Bear" character or name with the same penalty, 18 U.S.C. to maim or disfigure," but provided the death penalty for "run[ning] away with [a] ship or vessel, or any goods or merchandise to the value of fifty dollars." Does not the one suggest the existence of the other? That punishment, based upon the Spanish Penal Code, called for incarceration at " 'hard and painful labor' " with chains fastened to the wrists and ankles at all times. In Louisiana, one who assaults another with a dangerous weapon faces the same maximum prison term as one who removes a shopping basket "from the parking area or grounds of any store . Payne v. Tennessee, --- U.S. ----, ----, 111 S.Ct. "The judges, as they believed, sentenced Oates to be scourged to death." See Rummel v. Estelle, 445 U.S. 263, 277, n. 13, 100 S.Ct. Nevertheless, a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole does share one important characteristic of a death sentence: The offender will never regain his freedom. I adhere to my view that capital punishment is in all instances unconstitutional. Ala.Code § 13A-12-231(2)(d) (Supp.1990). . 353 (1981). VI, § 23 (1889). 1079, 1083, 93 L.Ed. Id., at 282, 100 S.Ct., at 1143, quoting Lochner v. New York, 198 U.S. 45, 76, 25 S.Ct. 1133, 63 L.Ed.2d 382 (1980), we held that it did not constitute "cruel and unusual punishment" to impose a life sentence, under a recidivist statute, upon a defendant who had been convicted, successively, of fraudulent use of a credit card to obtain $80 worth of goods or services, passing a forged check in the amount of $28.36, and obtaining $120.75 by false pretenses. "[T]he inhibition [of the Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause] was directed, not only against punishments which inflict torture, 'but against all punishments which by their excessive length or severity are greatly disproportioned to the offenses charged.' The Michigan scheme does possess mechanisms for consideration of individual circumstances. Pp. We applied like reasoning in Enmund v. Florida, 458 U.S. 782, 102 S.Ct. Ohio Const., Art. 3001, 3008, 77 L.Ed.2d 637 (1983), there is no reason to believe that the decision was an application of the principle of proportionality. With these considerations stated, it is necessary to examine the challenged aspects of petitioner's sentence: its severe length and its mandatory operation. Under that view, capital punishment—a mode of punishment—would either be completely barred or left to the discretion of the legislature. Two dangers lurk in Justice SCALIA's analysis. 2481, 2485, 110 L.Ed.2d 412 (1990), but at the same time has recognized that the severity of the problem "cannot excuse the need for scrupulous adherence to our constitutional principles," Grady v. Corbin, 495 U.S. ----, ----, 110 S.Ct. Const., Art. ed. The State has conceded that it chose not to prosecute Harmelin under the statute prohibiting possession with intent to deliver, because it was "not necessary and not prudent to make it more difficult for us to win a prosecution." In 1778, for example, the Virginia Legislature narrowly rejected a comprehensive "Bill for Proportioning Punishments" introduced by Thomas Jefferson. A. Washton, Cocaine Addiction: Treatment, Recovery, and Relapse Prevention 18 (1989). We think it enough that those who framed and approved the Federal Constitution chose, for whatever reason, not to include within it the guarantee against disproportionate sentences that some State Constitutions contained. 6 id., at 140-141. To be constitutionally proportionate, punishment must be tailored to a defendant's personal responsibility and moral guilt. See 1 Stat. 2726, 2760, 33 L.Ed.2d 346 (1972) (Stewart, J., concurring). A penalty as severe and unforgiving as the one imposed here would make this a most difficult and troubling case for any judicial officer. The "absolute magnitude" of petitioner's crime is not exceptionally serious. See Sources of Our Liberties 222-223 (R. Perry & J. Cooper eds. Furthermore, this argument would deprive this part of the Amendment of any meaning at all. A minority of the Lords dissented, however, and their statement sheds light on the meaning of the "cruell and unusuall Punishments" clause: "1st, [T]he King's Bench, being a Temporal Court. Ante, at 994-996. See, e.g., Schwoerer, supra, at 93; 4 W. Blackstone, Commentaries *372. Cf. See New State Ice Co. v. Liebmann, 285 U.S. 262, 311, 52 S.Ct. Because the statute at issue here concerns only drug possession, the Sixth Circuit's analysis has little relevance. An early (perhaps the earliest) judicial construction of the Federal provision is illustrative. By contrast, our decisions recognize that we lack clear objective standards to distinguish between sentences for different terms of years. Cf. "nowhere restrained from inventing the most cruel and unheard-of punishments, and annexing them to crimes; and there is no constitutional check on [it], but that racks and gibbets may be amongst the most mild instruments of [its] discipline." Despite these tensions, close analysis of our decisions yields some common principles that give content to the uses and limits of proportionality review. 1417, 8 L.Ed.2d 758 (1962), in which the prohibition against cruel and unusual punishments was made applicable to the States through the Fourteenth Amendment, removed any doubt that it is as much our duty to assess the constitutionality of punishments enacted by state legislative bodies as it is our obligation to review congressional enactments. But Solem recognized that. Justice KENNEDY, with whom Justice O'CONNOR and Justice SOUTER join, concurring in part and concurring in the judgment. 962-994. Indeed, a State may criminalize an act that other States choose to reward—punishing, for example, the killing of endangered wild animals for which other States are offering a bounty. VIII, §§ 13, 14 (1802).8, Secondly, it would seem quite peculiar to refer to cruelty and unusualness for the offense in question, in a provision having application only to a new government that had never before defined offenses, and that would be defining new and peculiarly national ones. 572, 575 (1900); see also, In re Bayard, 25 Hun. There we held that a sentence of life imprisonment without possibility of parole violated the Eighth Amendment because it was "grossly disproportionate" to the crime of recidivism based on seven underlying nonviolent felonies.
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