Rummel V Esemell Summary

In Rummel v. Estelle, the Supreme Court is examining the question of “whether the petitioner was subjected to cruel and unusual punishment”, with the petitioner being William James Rummel. In accordance to Texas’ “recidivist statute”, which provides that “[whoever] shall have been three times convicted of a felony less than capital shall on such third conviction be imprisoned for life in the penitentiary”, Rummel was sentenced to life in prison with chance for parole. This, Rummel protested, was “grossly disproportionate” to the three felonies he committed prior to receive this sentence, as none were violent. Justice Rehnquist, who delivered the Court opinion, in which Chief Justice Burger and Justices Stewart, White, and Blackmun joined, noted that Rummel agreed that the recidivist statute was generally constitutional, except in its application to his case. In addition, Rummel did not protest the classification of any of his three offenses as felonies. The Court noted a 1912 case, Graham v. West Virginia, where Graham was convicted with three separate accounts of horse thievery. These accounts totaled $235, which …show more content…
The dissenting opinion, however, assumes the Retributivist theory. They argue that the punishment must be in proportion to the crime with no thought of what will occur in the future. They believe that, through “examination of the objective factors traditionally employed by the Court to assess the proportionality of a sentence demonstrated that petitioner suffers a cruel and unusual punishment”, regarding Rummel as the petitioner. The dissenting opinion argues that because Rummel did not threaten or endanger the peace of society in any way, he is not deserving of “the penultimate criminal penalty.” Justice Powell, who is of the dissenting opinion,