8th Amendment

When a person is accused of a crime, they can either wait in jail until their trial, or pay bail, which is an amount of money set by the judge that the accused must pay to stay out of jail until the trial. Bail is decided by the judge based on how likely the accused is to run away while on bail. The eighth amendment prevents the judge from setting the bail too high. The same goes for fines, or amounts of money people have to pay as punishment for certain crimes. The eighth amendment keeps both fines and bail manageable.

Cruel and unusual punishment is exactly what is sounds like. Under the Eighth Amendment, the US government cannot sentence a criminal to any punishment that is cruel or unusual. This is slightly controversial. There are arguments that capital punishment, namely the Death Penalty, are cruel and unusual. Many cases have come to the Supreme Court about cruel and unusual punishment on everything from electric chairs to lethal injection cocktails.