Cruel and Unusual Justices

Yes, the issues raised in the California prison case do relate to lawyers’ and judges’ ethics, in the sense that rules of ethics - if we’re doing it right- are a reflection of our fundamental moral values.  The language and the photographs in the majority opinion make it clear that any conception of what is cruel and unusual - an essentially moral concept - must include the brutalization of the victims of the California prison system.

The justices in the minority are capable of being morally offended by what they consider to be excessive punitive damages against corporations, but cannot find sufficient cruelty in the inhumanity of the California prisons.  They lack not only empathy and compassion, but human decency.