Abstract

The study focuses on the jurisprudential development of the concept of proportionality of punishment in the Italian and american systems. The most important decisions dealing with such a issue, both of the Italian constitutional court and the SCOTUS are analyzed in detail. There is also an in depth analysis of lower federal courts' and state courts' proportionality jurisprudence, and a focus on the most significant theoretical perspectives elaborated by U.S. scholars, who strongly criticize the proportionality jurisprudence developed in the Suprem Court decisions, especially in the non-capital context.