On February 20th, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned an $80 million punitive damage award to Mayola Williams the widow of a cigarette smoker against Phillip Morris. During the trial, Mrs. Williams's lawyer had asked the jury to "think about how many other Jesse Williams in the last forty years in the state of Oregon there had been." In addition, the trial judge had also rejected a request by Phillip Morris for an instruction warning the jury that "...you are not to punish the defendant for the impact of its alleged misconduct on other persons." Justice Stephen Breyer, speaking for a majority of the members of the Court, said the due process clause prevented a jury from calculating punitive damages based on harm to those smokers who were not in court.
By way of comparison, a week later, the Court declined to hear the case of a man who received a 200-year prison sentence in Arizona for possessing child pornography. (In contrast, had the offense been prosecuted under federal law, the man - Morton Berger - would likely have received a five-year sentence.)
Arizona law mandates a ten-year sentence for sexual exploitation of a minor and requires that the sentences for multiple convictions be served consecutively. Mr. Berger's argument on appeal was that the sentence amounted to cruel and unusual punishment which is forbidden under the Constitution's eighth amendment.
This case followed on the heels of a 2003 decision by the High Court that found nothing cruel and usual about a 50-year prison sentence for a man who stole $150 worth of videotapes under California's three-strikes law. Think about it: a human being imprisoned for life for shoplifting.
Douglas Berman, a law professor at Ohio State University, had is just about right when he said the justices think they have a limited role to play in regulating corporate behavior, but don't seem to accept any role for themselves in regulating extreme individual punishment. It is hard to escape the conclusion that in the eyes of a majority of the members of the Supreme Court powerful corporations have more rights than ordinary people.
The writer is a public interest lawyer, consumer advocate, and public radio broadcaster in Los Angeles.
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