In the 1909 case of Weems v. United States, Paul A. Weems, an American official in the Philippines was convicted for falsifying a public and official document. He was sentenced to fifteen years of hard labor and fined under Philippine law which also included additional penalties such as lifetime surveillance following his prison term. The U.S Supreme Court ruled that this punishment violated the Eighth Amendment's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishments due to its severity compared with similar crimes in America where maximum sentence would be two years imprisonment without any post-release sanctions or fines. This landmark decision expanded interpretation of the Eighth Amendment beyond just types of punishment to include proportionality - meaning that sentences must be proportional to the crime committed.

In the dissenting opinion for Weems v. United States, Justice White argued that the majority's decision to overturn Paul Weems' sentence was a misinterpretation of the Eighth Amendment's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. He contended that this clause should not be used as a means to question or limit legislative power in determining appropriate punishments for crimes but rather only prevent torturous methods of punishment. Furthermore, he believed it was inappropriate for American courts to apply their own standards of justice and morality onto Philippine law (where Weems committed his crime), which had its unique cultural context and legal traditions. In essence, Justice White disagreed with the majority’s view that sentencing should be proportional to the crime committed; instead, he held an originalist interpretation where any form of non-torturous punishment could be imposed by legislation regardless of severity relative to offense.