434
Opinion of the Court
unusual punishments applicable to the States. Furman v. Georgia, 408 U. S. 238 (1972) (per curiam). The Due Process Clause of its own force also prohibits the States from imposing "grossly excessive" punishments on tortfeasors, Gore, 517 U. S., at 562; TXO Production Corp. v. Alliance Resources Corp., 509 U. S. 443, 453-455 (1993) (plurality opinion).
The Court has enforced those limits in cases involving deprivations of life, Enmund v. Florida, 458 U. S. 782, 787, 801 (1982) (death is not "a valid penalty under the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments for one who neither took life, attempted to take life, nor intended to take life"); Coker v. Georgia, 433 U. S. 584, 592 (1977) (opinion of White, J.) (sentence of death is "grossly disproportionate" and excessive punishment for the crime of rape); 8 deprivations of liberty, Solem v. Helm, 463 U. S., at 279, 303 (life imprisonment without the possibility of parole for nonviolent felonies is "significantly disproportionate"); and deprivations of property, United States v. Bajakajian, 524 U. S. 321, 324 (1998) (punitive forfeiture of $357,144 for violating reporting requirement was "grossly disporportional" to the gravity of the offense); Gore, 517 U. S., at 585-586 ($2 million punitive damages award for failing to advise customers of minor pre-delivery repairs to new automobiles was "grossly excessive" and therefore unconstitutional).
In these cases, the constitutional violations were predicated on judicial determinations that the punishments were "grossly disproportional to the gravity of . . . defendant[s'] offense[s]." Bajakajian, 524 U. S., at 334; see also Gore, 517 U. S., at 585-586; Solem, 463 U. S., at 303; Coker, 433 U. S., at 592 (opinion of White, J.). We have recognized that the relevant constitutional line is "inherently imprecise," Ba-8 Although disagreeing with the specific holding in Coker, Chief Justice Burger and then-Justice Rehnquist accepted the proposition that the "concept of disproportionality bars the death penalty for minor crimes." 433 U. S., at 604 (Burger, C. J., dissenting).
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