Eighth Amendment

What It Is

The Eighth Amendment prohibits “cruel and unusual punishments.” In the § 1983 context, it protects convicted prisoners from:

• Excessive force by corrections officers
• Deliberate indifference to serious medical needs
• Unconstitutional conditions of confinement
• Failure to protect from violence by other inmates

Eighth Amendment claims require a higher mental state than Fourth Amendment claims. For excessive force, you must show the officer acted maliciously and sadistically to cause harm, not just that the force was unreasonable. For conditions of confinement and medical care, the standard is deliberate indifference — the defendant knew of a serious risk and consciously ignored it.

Who It Covers (and Doesn’t)

• Convicted prisoners → Eighth Amendment
• Pretrial detainees → Fourteenth Amendment (due process)
• People being arrested → Fourth Amendment

The distinction matters because the standards are different. The Eighth Amendment requires a subjective showing — the official must have actually known of and disregarded a substantial risk. After Kingsley v. Hendrickson, 576 U.S. 389 (2015), the Fourteenth Amendment standard for pretrial detainees may be objective (at least for force claims).

Conditions of Confinement

To establish an Eighth Amendment conditions claim:

1. Objective component: The deprivation must be “sufficiently serious” — denying the minimal civilized measure of life’s necessities (food, warmth, exercise, medical care, safety)
2. Subjective component: The official must have been deliberately indifferent — actually aware of a substantial risk of serious harm and failing to act

Excessive Force (Post-Conviction)

For convicted prisoners, the force standard is whether the officer applied force “maliciously and sadistically for the very purpose of causing harm.” Hudson v. McMillian, 503 U.S. 1 (1992). This is more protective than the Fourth Amendment’s “objective reasonableness” standard.

Key Cases

• Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U.S. 97 (1976) — Deliberate indifference to medical needs
• Farmer v. Brennan, 511 U.S. 825 (1994) — Subjective awareness standard
• Hudson v. McMillian, 503 U.S. 1 (1992) — Force standard for convicted prisoners
• Wilson v. Seiter, 501 U.S. 294 (1991) — Subjective component required for conditions claims