The Court granted Albert Trop certiorari. (http://www.oyez.org/oyez/resource/case/1068/).
The Supreme Court found his punishment too extreme, "A penalty that was permissible at one time in our nation's history is not necessarily permissible today-- Thurgood Marshall. The Court determined that citizenship does not act as a license which can expire or be withheld do to mischievous acts. The court ruled that the punishment of denationalization violated the Eighth Amendment because it was a cruel and unusual punishment. (Text, 313).
Later in 1977 a more clear definition was established as to what defined "cruel and unusual punishment-. In an attempt to lay down guidelines, the Supreme Court declared in Coker v. Georgia of 1977 that a punishment is unconstitutionally cruel and unusual if it "(1) makes no measurable contribution to acceptable goals of punishment and hence is nothing more than the purposeless and needless imposition of pain and suffering; or (2) is grossly out of proportion to the severity of the crime-. Further guidelines were established in the 1983 Solem v. Helm case when the court ruled three criteria to determine "proportional analysis-, or whether a punishment fits the crime committed. .
Courts must consider "(i) the gravity of the offense and the harshness of the penalty; (ii) the sentences imposed on other criminals in the same jurisdiction; and (iii) the sentences imposed for the commission of the same crime in other jurisdictions."" This helped identify the general rule of the eighth amendment, that punishments need to be proportionally or directly related to the crime committed. (Textbook, 313).
Five years before the court determined "proportionality analysis- of a punishment, they wrestled the question of corporal punishment, or punishment through physical force causing bodily harm. In the 1978 case of Ingram v Wright, Ingraham, a junior high-school student, was paddled by a teacher more than 20 times, which called for medical attention and kept him out of school for a week and a half.