Ewing v. California, 538 U.S. 11 (2003), is one of two cases upholding a sentence imposed under California's three strikes law against a challenge that it constituted cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment. As in its prior decision in "Harmelin v. Michigan", the United States Supreme Court could not agree on the precise reasoning to uphold the sentence. But, with the decision in "Ewing" and the companion case "Lockyer v. Andrade," the Court effectively foreclosed criminal defendants from arguing that their non-capital sentences were disproportional to the crime they had committed.