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Homelessness is punishing to those who experience it, not just from the inherent and protracted trauma of living exposed on the street, but also due to widespread and pervasive laws that punish people for being homeless. People experiencing homelessness, particularly chronic homelessness, often lack reasonable alternatives to living in public. Yet cities throughout the country are increasingly enacting and enforcing laws that punish the conduct of necessary, life-sustaining activities in public, even when many people have no other option. These laws are frequently challenged in court and often struck down as unconstitutional. But legally sound, cost-effective, and non-punitive alternatives to ending chronic homelessness exist. This article exposes some of the problems with criminalization laws, not only for people experiencing homelessness, but also for the broader community. It discusses how current approaches often make chronic homelessness worse and explains why non-punitive alternatives, especially Housing First and permanent supportive housing, are the most cost-effective means of addressing chronic homelessness. Ultimately, this article urges cities and their constituents to stop punishing homelessness and instead to start solving it.

On 17 November 2022 in Alabama, the death penalty by poison injection was scheduled to be executed on Kenneth Smith. His case is a disturbing example of the use of judicial power (known as ‘judicial override’) in the state law of Alabama that allowed the judge, at the time of the verdict in 1996, to overturn the jury’s decision recommending the choice of life imprisonment without parole instead of the death penalty, and thus give a final death sentence. The article presented here first provides a general analysis of the provisions of the federal constitution, relevant case law and federal legislation on the death penalty, and then presents an overview of state solutions to the death penalty. The key parts of the text deal with the institution of ‘judicial override’: its genesis and practice in the state of Alabama, and the application of the relevant legislation to the Kenneth Smith case. It argues that mechanisms such as ‘judicial override’ and their consequences strengthen the narrative of those arguing against the death penalty in the social and political debate.

On 17 November 2022 in Alabama, the death penalty by poison injection was scheduled to be executed on Kenneth Smith. His case is a disturbing example of the use of judicial power (known as ‘judicial override’) in the state law of Alabama that allowed the judge, at the time of the verdict in 1996, to overturn the jury’s decision recommending the choice of life imprisonment without parole instead of the death penalty, and thus give a final death sentence. The article presented here first provides a general analysis of the provisions of the federal constitution, relevant case law and federal legislation on the death penalty, and then presents an overview of state solutions to the death penalty. The key parts of the text deal with the institution of ‘judicial override’: its genesis and practice in the state of Alabama, and the application of the relevant legislation to the Kenneth Smith case. It argues that mechanisms such as ‘judicial override’ and their consequences strengthen the narrative of those arguing against the death penalty in the social and political debate.

(2022) overturned (1973), thus returning abortion policy decisions to state governments, abortion access across the United States became fragmented, with some states enacting near-total bans and other states strengthening protection. As a parallel, the Republic of Ireland's (ROI) 2018 repeal of the Eighth Amendment and the United Kingdom's (UK) longstanding framework of care offer informative historical examples. This qualitative study explores the perspectives and experiences of abortion-trained physicians in California (CA), Texas (TX), ROI, and the UK, focusing on how legislation shapes physicians' ability to deliver comprehensive abortion care. In accordance with Consolidated Criteria for Reporting Qualitative Research (COREQ), nineteen abortion-trained physicians practicing in Family Medicine, Obstetrics & Gynecology, and General Practice (CA = 6; TX = 4; UK = 4; ROI = 5) participated in 1-hour semi-structured interviews from August 2022 to November 2023 relating to their abortion care training and practice. Interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed, anonymized, and coded using Braun and Clarke's six-step approach to thematic analysis and conducted until thematic saturation was reached. Analysis revealed several interconnected themes. Across all geographical practices, physicians highlighted the importance of centering care on patients' needs, but variations in legislation largely shaped clinical care. Training experience varied widely with many shaping their own education in the context of available resources. Changing policies functioned as a clinical variable, often shifting with cultural and political attitudes. Geographic, financial, facility-related, and healthcare infrastructure barriers compounded legislative obstacles, highlighting that legality does not guarantee accessibility. Participants additionally emphasized cross-specialty advocacy, reported experiences with stigma, and dispelled common misconceptions on abortion. These findings highlight that policy functions as a major determinant of health and that centering on patient experiences, standardizing education, addressing healthcare infrastructure barriers, strengthening peer support systems, continued physician advocacy, and systemic reforms are necessary to reduce preventable delays, patient distress, and disparities in care. This study highlights the importance of incorporating physicians' perspectives into legislative discussions to ensure accurate representation of patient needs and challenges in accessing abortion care.

Few words play a more central role in modern constitutional law without appeanng in the Constitution than \"dignity.\" The term appears in more than nine hundred Supreme Court opinions, but despite its popularity, dignity is a concept in disarray. Its meanings and functions are commonly presupposed but rarely articulated. The result is a cacophony of uses so confusing that some critics argue the word ought to be abandoned altogether. This Article fills a void in the literature by offering the first empirical study of Supreme Court opinions that invoke dignity and then proposing a typology of dignity based on an analysis of how the term is used in those opinions. The study reveals three important findings. First, the Court's reliance on dignity is increasing, and the Roberts Court is accelerating that trend. Second, in contrast to its past use, dignity is now as likely to be invoked by the more conservative Justices on the Court as by their more liberal counterparts. Finally, the study demonstrates that dignity is not one concept, as other scholars have theorized, but rather five related concepts. The typology refers to these conceptions of dignity as institutional status as dignity, equality as dignity, liberty as dignity, personal integrity as dignity, and collective virtue as dignity. This Article traces each type of dignity to its epistemic origins and describes the substantive dignitary interests each protects. Importantly, the typology offers more than a clarification of the conceptual chaos surrounding dignity. It provides tools to track the Court's use of different types of dignity over time. This permits us to detect doctrinally transformative moments, in such areas as state sovereign immunity and abortion jurisprudence, that arise from shifting conceptions of dignity.

The shackling of pregnant prisoners during labor and childbirth is endemic within women's penal institutions in the United States. This Article investigates the factors that account for the pervasiveness of this practice and suggests doctrinal innovations that may be leveraged to prevent its continuation. At a general level, this Article asserts that we cannot understand the persistence of the shackling of female prisoners without understanding how historical constructions of race and gender operate structurally to both motivate and mask its use. More specifically, this Article contends that while shackling affects female prisoners of all races today, the persistent practice attaches to Black women in particular through the historical devaluation, regulation, and punishment of their exercise of reproductive capacity in three contexts: slavery, convict leasing, and chain gangs in the South. The regulation and punishment of Black women within these oppressive systems reinforced and reproduced stereotypes of these women as deviant and dangerous. In turn, as Southern penal practices proliferated in the United States and Black women became a significant percentage of the female prison population, these images began to animate harsh practices against all female prisoners. Moreover, this Article asserts that current jurisprudence concerning the Eighth Amendment, the primary constitutional vehicle for challenging conditions of confinement, such as shackling, is insufficient to combat racialized practices at the structural level. Current doctrine focuses on the subjective intentions of prison officials at the individual level and omits any consideration of how race underlies institutional practices. Instead, this Article suggests an expanded reading of the Eighth Amendment and the \"evolving standards of decency\" language that undergirds the \"cruel and unusual punishments\" clause. Specifically, this Article argues that evolving standards of decency should be guided by other constitutional provisions, such as the Thirteenth Amendment. This expanded reading, which this Article refers to as the \"antisubordination approach,\" draws upon Justice Harlan's oft-cited dissent in Plessy v. Ferguson and his underappreciated reading of the Thirteenth Amendment therein. Under such a reading, conditions of confinement that result from or are related to repudiated mechanisms of racial domination should be deemed \"cruel and unusual punishments.\" By challenging race and gender subordination at the structural level, this Article suggests that we can move from an aspiration to the actualization of humane justice.

For more than two centuries, no clause of the US 'Constitution' has been more central to debates over federal power than the 'Necessary and Proper Clause'. For an interpreter today, it is inevitable to wonder if everything worth saying has already been said. Yet the Clause remains at the heart of major debates in this country, including the recent landmark case of 'National Federation of Independent Business v Sebelius'. In that case the Court eventually got around to upholding the 'Affordable Care Act' under the taxing power, but only after holding that the individual mandate could not be justified under the 'Necessary and Proper Clause'. The individual mandate, the Chief Justice wrote, might be \"'necessary' to the Act's insurance reforms,\" but it was \"not a 'proper' means for making those reforms effective.\" Necessary, but not proper. Whether the conclusion was right or not, it was exactly the kind of close reading that one would expect a court to give to the Clause, since it authorizes only congressional actions that are \"necessary and proper.\" Or does it?

This article explores the extent to which the foetus was considered to have constitutional personality prior to the introduction of the Eighth Amendment in 1983. Two paradigmatic ways in which the unborn was conceptualised in Irish law after the introduction of the Eighth Amendment is then explored. Finally, the judgment in IRM v Minister for Justice is reviewed.

This article argues that correctional institutions violate the Eighth Amendment when they refuse to establish MAT programs and prevent doctors from exercising medical judgment to properly treat incarcerated people with OUD.

The average amount of time that death row inmates spend on death row has ballooned over the past decade, and for death row inmates in the state of Texas, the entire duration of that increased time will be spent in solitary confinement. This raises the following question: Is solitary confinement now considered to be part of the punishment, one that may be worse than the death penalty itself? This article discusses the history of solitary confinement in U.S. prisons and cites scientific literature which posits that long-term solitary confinement can cause serious psychological damage. It examines “ death row syndrome,” a term that refers to the psychological illness or disorder exhibited by an inmate who has spent a prolonged period of time in harsh conditions on death row. The article reviews the Polunsky Unit, which currently houses Texas’s death row and has been described as one of the worst prisons in the United States. The article also discusses the long history of Lackey claims, which allege that prolonged confinements under a death sentence breach the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. The unresolved dissent within the Supreme Court regarding this subject is presented and discussed. This article contends that the prolonged solitary confinement of a Texas inmate on death row is a violation of the Eighth Amendment, and concludes that the only solution is to end the practice of automatic and permanent solitary confinement.