—the Indiana Supreme Court explained that "[t] he word `cruel,'when considered in relation to the time when it found place in the bill of rights, meant, not a fine or imprisonment, or both, but such as that inflicted at the whipping post, in the pillory, burning at the stake, breaking on the wheel, etc. "

They read state counterparts to the Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause as forbidding only certain punishments.

“In short, the text writers and cases say that the clause is aimed at those ancient punishments, those horrible, inhuman, barbarous inflictions.”

"Confronting Smith is this long accepted and recently restated principle that:" Generally, the constitutional prohibitions against cruel and unusual punishments, however, are proscriptive of atrocious or obsolete punishments and are aimed at the kind and form of the punishment, rather than the duration and amount.

And when the statute was attacked as prescribing excessive punishment, the early cases indicated that this provision was aimed at the form and character of the punishment rather than its severity in respect to term of imprisonment or amount of fine.

Courts declared the pillories and stocks "cruel and unusual punishment" and therefore unconstitutional.

In the late nineteenth century courts began claiming Nscarlet letters punishment, such as pillories, as Pcruel and unusualQ under the Eighth Amendment

—finding that punishment may be severe, but it is the legislature's duty to determine appropriate sentences

[CITATION] Recent Developments in Labor Law: A Symposium