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Name: Taylor v. Lewis
Case #: 04-17517
Court: US Court of Appeals
District 9 Cir
Opinion Date: 08/15/2006
Summary

A sentence of 25 years to life for possession of a small amount of cocaine does not violate the Eighth Amendment. The narrow proportionality principle prohibits only extreme sentences that are grossly disproportionate to the crime, and given the United States Supreme Court’s recent similar rulings, it cannot be said that the state court’s affirmance of the sentence in this case involved an objectively unreasonable application of federal law.