The United States Supreme Court paved the way for three-strikes laws when it ruled in ____ that Texas' habitual offender statute did not constitute "cruel and unusual punishment" under the Eighth Amendment.

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In Rummel v. Estelle (1980), the Supreme Court upheld a Texas statute that imposed a life sentence without parole for someone convicted of three non-violent felonies. The Court ruled that this sentence did not violate the Eighth Amendment's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. This paved the way for other states to pass similar "three-strikes" laws, which have been criticized for leading to excessively long sentences for nonviolent offenders.

The United States Supreme Court Paved the Way for Three-Strikes