Ewing v. California

Ewing v. California
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued November 5, 2002 Decided March 5, 2003
Full case name	Gary Ewing v. State of California
Docket no.	01-6978
Citations	538 U.S. 11 (more) 123 S. Ct. 1179; 155 L. Ed. 2d 108; 2003 U.S. LEXIS 1952
Case history
Prior	Defendant convicted in Los Angeles County Superior Court; conviction affirmed by California Court of Appeal; California Supreme Court declined review, and the U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari, 535 U.S. 969 (2002).
Holding
California's three strikes law does not violate the Eighth Amendment prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.
Court membership
Chief Justice William Rehnquist Associate Justices John P. Stevens · Sandra Day O'Connor Antonin Scalia · Anthony Kennedy David Souter · Clarence Thomas Ruth Bader Ginsburg · Stephen Breyer
Case opinions
Plurality	O'Connor, joined by Rehnquist, Kennedy
Concurrence	Scalia (in judgment)
Concurrence	Thomas (in judgment)
Dissent	Stevens, joined by Souter, Ginsburg, Breyer
Dissent	Breyer, joined by Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg
Laws applied
U.S. Const. amend. VIII; Cal. Penal Code § 667

Ewing v. California, 538 U.S. 11 (2003), is one of two cases upholding a sentence imposed under California's three strikes law against a challenge that it constituted cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment.^[1] As in its prior decision in Harmelin v. Michigan,^[2] the United States Supreme Court could not agree on the precise reasoning to uphold the sentence. But, with the decision in Ewing and the companion case Lockyer v. Andrade,^[3] the Court effectively foreclosed criminal defendants from arguing that their non-capital sentences were disproportional to the crime they had committed.

Ewing was represented in the Court by Quin Denvir. The Attorney General of California argued for the State of California. Michael Chertoff argued on behalf of the United States as amicus curiae.