Indeed, barely three months after the Bill of Rights was adopted, the House of Lords declared that a "fine of thirty thousand pounds, imposed by the court of King's Bench upon the earl of Devon was excessive and exorbitant, against magna charta, the common right of the subject, and the law of the land."

The Charter of Rhode Island, adopted in 1663, explicitly extended proportionality to prison sentences, requiring "the imposing of lawfull and reasonable ffynes...[and] imprisonments

At least since the Bill of Rights was introduced in 1689, excessive penalties have not been enforceable in England

见 4 WILLIAM BLACKSTONE, COMMENTARIES, 16-19 (1769)(谴责不合理的严厉刑罚时, 使用 “残酷” 指代严厉或过度.) 事实上, 在英国权利法案通过后不到三个月, 上议院就宣称, 王室法院对德文郡伯爵判处三万罚金极度过分地违反了大宪章和国民的普遍权利, 并且也违反了土地法.

[PDF] Tryout Cases and Syllabi

[BOOK] Commonsense justice: Jurors' notions of the law

[CITATION] 2004 Stanford Law Review Symposium: Punishment and Its Purposes

[CITATION] Crimes and Punishment: Cases, Materials, and Readings in Criminal Law