Stinneford on Proportionality as Part of the Original Meaning of the Eighth Amendment

Via Larry Solum, I see that John Stinneford has posted a new version of his terrific piece on the issue of excessiveness of punishment as part of the original meaning of the Eighth Amendment.  John also discusses the theoretical nature of proportionality as exclusively retributivist (see note 32 and the section beginning at page 961 for John's position w/r/t utilitarian aims -- he basically stakes out a negative retributivist place for proportionality).

For those that do not know John's excellent and interesting work on originalism and the Eighth Amendment, may I also recommend his The Original Meaning of Unusual and his piece on chemical castration, which a couple of my students this last year found helpful as we talked about various kinds of punishment practices -- the possibility of physical castration as punishment is (incredibly, to me) a live one in some states in this country.