Edit: the following is in response to an assumption the parent meant "cruel" as in "cruel" not "cruel" as in "Cruel and Unusual Punishment." [0]

Depriving them of the ability to work and be a productive citizen. Depriving them of their existing assets (fines), and as stated by Manning and others, that grand juries have tended in the past to victimize those they call as witnesses.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cruel_and_unusual_punishment

Not making commentary on Manning specifically, but what you just described isn't "cruel" in terms of "cruel and unusual punishment". Now, the means of imprisonment or acts taken to you while imprisoned may be cruel, but simply imprisoning someone for breaking the law (contempt of court, in this case) does not rise to the level of "cruel".

Unfair? Unnecessary? Unfitting of the wrong? Those are all things I don't know enough to really say or discuss in an educated manner.

I was responding to the question "How is it cruel" - I didn't mean to opine on the legal phrasing/interpretation of cruel and unusual punishment.

> How is admittedly imprisoning someone for "coercive" reasons not cruel? /I'll table the unusual bit.

Why would I assume you meant the colloquial "cruel" and not the legal "cruel" here? Perhaps you should edit to clarify if your intent was the former as opposed to the latter.

I don't know, why would I assume you mean the legal terminology. I don't assume that it's that when the phrase isn't used in full - I assumed the omission was intentional. Something can be cruel without being unreasonable, and something can be unreasonable without being cruel.

Perhaps you should also edit to clarify your intent.

> that grand juries have tended in the past to victimize those they call as witnesses.

This is the same line of reasoning Alex Jones uses to justify his conspiracies. "The government had Project Northwoods, why isn't [conspiracy] likely?!"

How does that apply to grand juries?

Keeping someone confined? It’s not NOT cruel.

So based on your argument, imprisonment in general is unconstitutional?

I think there is a very rationale case to be made that imprisonment for the sake of punishment is unproductive and immoral - but I can't see any way that it falls under unconstitutional.

By the standard of the 8th amendment, it is not cruel, or else we would not be able to imprison anyone.

the 8th amendment is about "cruel and unusual punishment". As long as the punishment is usual, it can be cruel.

From what I've read "cruel and unusual punishment" is less of an AND statement about punishments being cruel and non-standard and more of a double descriptor of the cruelty with the unusual portion more focused on a sort of terrible inventiveness and also, IMO to stand as a sort of fallback for questionable punishments, if the punishment is innovative it would need to be proven to not be cruel before it's application - and the US has (IMO) failed to adhere to this standard in the past with some methods of administering the death penalty - specifically the electric chair.

I personally don't like death penalties (due to their misuse as a political tool and the general high error rate of judgement) but I believe proper lethal injection fits perfectly within the bounds of not being cruel nor unusual.

So, if someone said that lethal injection was more humane if administered in direct sunlight while the injectee was hanging upside down due to blood movement some-such... assuming they were telling the truth about the efficacy then it'd likely pass the 8th amendment.

Stated more logically, it would be "no cruel punishments and no unusual punishments".