Continuing, he wrote that he expected that no state would pass a law obviously violating any one of these principles, so court decisions regarding the Eighth Amendment would involve a "cumulative" analysis of the implication of each of the four principles. In this way, the United States Supreme Court "set the standard that a punishment would be cruel and unusual it was too severe for the crime, [if it was arbitrary, if it offended society's sense of justice, or if it was not more effective than a less severe penalty."