Solem v. Helm, , was a United States Supreme Court case concerned with the scope of the Eighth Amendment

Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution

The Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution is the part of the United States Bill of Rights which prohibits the federal government from imposing excessive bail, excessive fines or cruel and unusual punishments. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that this amendment's Cruel and Unusual...

 protection from cruel and unusual punishment. Mr. Helm, who had written a check from a fictitious account and had reached his seventh nonviolent felony

Felony

A felony is a serious crime in the common law countries. The term originates from English common law where felonies were originally crimes which involved the confiscation of a convicted person's land and goods; other crimes were called misdemeanors...

 conviction since 1964, received a mandatory sentence, under South Dakota

South Dakota

South Dakota is a state located in the Midwestern region of the United States. It is named after the Lakota and Dakota Sioux American Indian tribes. Once a part of Dakota Territory, South Dakota became a state on November 2, 1889. The state has an area of and an estimated population of just over...

 law at that time, to life in prison with no parole

Parole

Parole may have different meanings depending on the field and judiciary system. All of the meanings originated from the French parole . Following its use in late-resurrected Anglo-French chivalric practice, the term became associated with the release of prisoners based on prisoners giving their...

. Petitioner Mr. Solem was the warden of the South Dakota State Penitentiary at the time.

The Court overturned the sentence on the grounds that it was "cruel and unusual". Justice Powell

Lewis Franklin Powell, Jr.

Lewis Franklin Powell, Jr. was an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. He developed a reputation as a judicial moderate, and was known as a master of compromise and consensus-building. He was also widely well regarded by contemporaries due to his personal good manners and...

 wrote for the five-member majority, while Chief Justice Burger

Warren E. Burger

Warren Earl Burger was the 15th Chief Justice of the United States from 1969 to 1986. Although Burger had conservative leanings, the U.S...

 wrote for the four-member dissent. Justice Powell reasoned that Helm had "received the penultimate sentence for relatively minor criminal conduct." Chief Burger's concerns reflected his strict constructionist attitude: "Suppose several states punish severely a crime that the Court views as trivial or petty? I can see no limiting principle in the Court's holding."

The language of the opinion, however, refrained from striking down state statutes setting minimum sentencing guidelines for recidivism

Recidivism

Recidivism is the act of a person repeating an undesirable behavior after they have either experienced negative consequences of that behavior, or have been treated or trained to extinguish that behavior...

. The majority opinion only called for exceptions to the statutes protecting the constitutional freedom from cruel and unusual punishment.