Hudson v. McMillian
E266469
Hudson v. McMillian is a 1992 U.S. Supreme Court case that held that the use of excessive physical force against a prisoner can violate the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment even when the inmate does not suffer serious injury.
All labels observed (1)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| Hudson v. McMillian canonical | 2 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T2435113 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Hudson v. McMillian Context triple: [Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution, centralIssueInCase, Hudson v. McMillian]
-
A.
Strickland v. Washington
Strickland v. Washington is a landmark 1984 U.S. Supreme Court case that established the two-pronged test for determining when a criminal defendant’s right to effective assistance of counsel has been violated.
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B.
Gebhart v. Belton
Gebhart v. Belton was a landmark Delaware school segregation case whose rulings in favor of Black students became one of the four consolidated cases decided in Brown v. Board of Education, contributing to the Supreme Court’s rejection of “separate but equal” in public education.
-
C.
Virginia v. Black
Virginia v. Black is a 2003 U.S. Supreme Court case that upheld a ban on cross burning carried out with intent to intimidate while clarifying the limits of First Amendment protection for hate speech and symbolic expression.
-
D.
McDonald v. Smith
McDonald v. Smith is a 1985 U.S. Supreme Court case that held the First Amendment’s Petition Clause does not grant absolute immunity from libel suits for statements made in petitions to government officials.
-
E.
Escobedo v. Illinois
Escobedo v. Illinois is a landmark 1964 U.S. Supreme Court case that expanded the Sixth Amendment right to counsel during police interrogations and helped lay the groundwork for the later Miranda warnings.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Hudson v. McMillian Target entity description: Hudson v. McMillian is a 1992 U.S. Supreme Court case that held that the use of excessive physical force against a prisoner can violate the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment even when the inmate does not suffer serious injury.
-
A.
Strickland v. Washington
Strickland v. Washington is a landmark 1984 U.S. Supreme Court case that established the two-pronged test for determining when a criminal defendant’s right to effective assistance of counsel has been violated.
-
B.
Gebhart v. Belton
Gebhart v. Belton was a landmark Delaware school segregation case whose rulings in favor of Black students became one of the four consolidated cases decided in Brown v. Board of Education, contributing to the Supreme Court’s rejection of “separate but equal” in public education.
-
C.
Virginia v. Black
Virginia v. Black is a 2003 U.S. Supreme Court case that upheld a ban on cross burning carried out with intent to intimidate while clarifying the limits of First Amendment protection for hate speech and symbolic expression.
-
D.
McDonald v. Smith
McDonald v. Smith is a 1985 U.S. Supreme Court case that held the First Amendment’s Petition Clause does not grant absolute immunity from libel suits for statements made in petitions to government officials.
-
E.
Escobedo v. Illinois
Escobedo v. Illinois is a landmark 1964 U.S. Supreme Court case that expanded the Sixth Amendment right to counsel during police interrogations and helped lay the groundwork for the later Miranda warnings.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (48)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
Eighth Amendment case
ⓘ
United States Supreme Court case ⓘ |
| appliesTo |
federal prisoners
ⓘ
state prisoners ⓘ |
| areaOfLaw |
civil rights
ⓘ
constitutional law ⓘ prisoners' rights ⓘ |
| arguedDate | 1991-10-15 ⓘ |
| citation | 503 U.S. 1 ⓘ |
| constitutionalProvisionInterpreted | Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution ⓘ |
| country |
United States of America
ⓘ
surface form:
United States
|
| court | Supreme Court of the United States ⓘ |
| decisionDate | 1992-02-25 ⓘ |
| decisionType | majority decision ⓘ |
| dissentingJustices |
Antonin Scalia
ⓘ
Clarence Thomas ⓘ |
| dissentType | dissenting opinion ⓘ |
| docketNumber | 90-6531 ⓘ |
| fullName | Hudson v. McMillian self-link ⓘ |
| holding | The use of excessive physical force against a prisoner may constitute cruel and unusual punishment even when the inmate does not suffer serious injury. ⓘ |
| impact | lowered threshold for prisoners to bring Eighth Amendment excessive force claims ⓘ |
| jurisdiction | United States federal law ⓘ |
| languageOfOpinion | English ⓘ |
| legalIssue |
Eighth Amendment cruel and unusual punishment
ⓘ
excessive force against prisoners ⓘ |
| legalPrinciple | Excessive force that is malicious and sadistic violates the Eighth Amendment regardless of the extent of injury. ⓘ |
| majorityJustices |
Anthony M. Kennedy
ⓘ
Byron R. White ⓘ David H. Souter ⓘ Harry A. Blackmun ⓘ John Paul Stevens ⓘ Sandra Day O’Connor ⓘ
surface form:
Sandra Day O'Connor
Thurgood Marshall ⓘ |
| majorityOpinionBy |
Sandra Day O’Connor
ⓘ
surface form:
Justice Sandra Day O'Connor
|
| originatingCourt | United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ⓘ |
| pageInUnitedStatesReports | 1 ⓘ |
| petitioner | Keith Hudson ⓘ |
| precedentFor | standards for excessive force claims by prisoners ⓘ |
| rejectedRequirement | significant injury requirement for Eighth Amendment excessive force claims ⓘ |
| relatedCase |
Whitley v. Albers
ⓘ
Wilkins v. Gaddy ⓘ |
| respondent | John McMillian ⓘ |
| standardAnnounced | The core judicial inquiry is whether force was applied in a good-faith effort to maintain or restore discipline, or maliciously and sadistically to cause harm. ⓘ |
| topic |
conditions of confinement
ⓘ
cruel and unusual punishment ⓘ |
| volumeOfUnitedStatesReports | 503 ⓘ |
| voteSplit | 7-2 ⓘ |
| yearDecided | 1992 ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: Hudson v. McMillian Description of subject: Hudson v. McMillian is a 1992 U.S. Supreme Court case that held that the use of excessive physical force against a prisoner can violate the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment even when the inmate does not suffer serious injury.
Referenced by (2)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.