You may never have heard of Titus Oates, but it was his case that inspired America's Founders to include the Eight Amendment in the Bills of Rights.

After the ascension of King James II in 1689 Oates was tried for perjuries that had caused many executions. He was sentenced and imprisoned, which included an annual ordeal of being taken out for two days pilory (at Westminster, then London) plus one day of whipping while tied to a moving cart.

The punishment of Oates involved ordinary penalties collectively imposed in an excessive and unprecedented manner. The perjury committed by Oates resulted in the death penalty for innocent people whom he had falsely accused; the reason Oates did not receive the death penalty may be because it would have deterred even honest witnesses from testifying in later cases.

In England, the "cruel and unusual punishments" clause was a limitation on the discretion of judges, and required judges to adhere to precedent. According to the great treatise of the 1760s by William Blackstone entitled Commentaries on the Laws of England:

[H]owever unlimited the power of the court may seem, it is far from being wholly arbitrary; but its discretion is regulated by law. For the bill of rights has particularly declared, that excessive fines ought not to be imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted: (which had a retrospect to some unprecedented proceedings in the court of king's bench, in the reign of king James the second)....[

Virginia included the idea in its Constitution in 1776. It was added to the Bill of Rights in 1791.

The Eighth Amendment (Amendment VIII) to the United States Constitution is the part of the United States Bill of Rights, which prohibits the federal government from imposing excessive bail, excessive fines or cruel and unusual punishments.

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled this amendment's Cruel and Unusual Punishment Clause applies to the states. The phrases employed originate in the English Bill of Rights of 1689.

It is almost identical to a provision in the English Bill of Rights of 1689, in which Parliament declared, "as their ancestors in like cases have usually done...that excessive bail ought not to be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted