In re Kemmler
E670120
In re Kemmler is an 1890 U.S. Supreme Court decision that upheld the use of the electric chair and narrowly interpreted the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment.
All labels observed (1)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| In re Kemmler canonical | 1 |
Statements (44)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
United States Supreme Court case
ⓘ
legal case ⓘ |
| appliesTo | state criminal executions ⓘ |
| branchOfLaw |
constitutional law
ⓘ
criminal law ⓘ |
| citation | 136 U.S. 436 ⓘ |
| concerns | constitutionality of electrocution as a method of execution ⓘ |
| country | United States of America ⓘ |
| court | Supreme Court of the United States ⓘ |
| decade | 1890s ⓘ |
| decisionDate | 1890 ⓘ |
| decisionType | unanimous decision ⓘ |
| establishedPrinciple |
a method of execution is not cruel within the meaning of the Eighth Amendment unless it involves torture or unnecessary cruelty
ⓘ
the Constitution does not guarantee a painless death in executions ⓘ |
| hasEffect | upheld the use of the electric chair in New York ⓘ |
| hasJurisdiction | United States federal government NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| hasKeyword |
Eighth Amendment
NERFINISHED
ⓘ
Fourteenth Amendment NERFINISHED ⓘ capital punishment ⓘ cruel and unusual punishment ⓘ electric chair ⓘ electrocution ⓘ |
| hasParty | William Kemmler NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| holding |
the Eighth Amendment prohibits punishments that involve torture or lingering death rather than the mere extinguishment of life
ⓘ
the Fourteenth Amendment does not extend the Eighth Amendment’s cruel and unusual punishment clause to the states in this context ⓘ the use of the electric chair as a method of execution does not violate the Eighth Amendment prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment ⓘ |
| interprets |
Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution
NERFINISHED
ⓘ
Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| language | English ⓘ |
| legalSubject |
Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution
NERFINISHED
ⓘ
capital punishment ⓘ cruel and unusual punishment ⓘ electrocution ⓘ methods of execution ⓘ |
| locationOfCourt | Washington, D.C. NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| originatedIn | State of New York NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| precedentFor | later Eighth Amendment method-of-execution cases ⓘ |
| relatedTo |
capital punishment in the United States
ⓘ
electric chair ⓘ methods of capital punishment jurisprudence ⓘ |
| subjectOf |
debate over constitutionality of the electric chair
ⓘ
scholarly analysis on the scope of the Eighth Amendment ⓘ |
| timePeriod | post–Civil War constitutional era ⓘ |
| yearDecided | 1890 ⓘ |
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: In re Kemmler Description of subject: In re Kemmler is an 1890 U.S. Supreme Court decision that upheld the use of the electric chair and narrowly interpreted the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment.
Referenced by (1)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.