Salvaging Proportionate Prison Sentencing: A Reply to Rummel v. Estelle

Part I of this Note provides a capsule of the Court’s holding in Rummel. Part II argues, contrary to Rummel, that precedential support can be mustered to support eighth amendment review of sentence length. Finally, part 11,1 discusses the continued viability of the proportionality test as a vehicle for assessing challenges to the length of imprisonment, and discounts the concerns voiced in Rummel regarding the difficulty of judicial review of legislative sentencing decisions.