ith
the same transaction.'" It would be therefore, the Court concluded, "an
exaltation of technical precision to an unwarranted degree to say that
the indictment here did not inform the petitioner that he was charged
with the substantial elements of the crime of larceny." Under these
circumstances he must be deemed to have been given "reasonable notice
and information of the specific charge against him and a fair hearing in
open court."[968]

Excessive Bail, Cruel and Unusual Punishment, Sentence

The commitment to prison of a person convicted of crime, without giving
him an opportunity pending an appeal, to furnish bail, does not violate
the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.[969] Likewise, a
State, notwithstanding the limitations of that clause, retains a wide
discretion in prescribing penalties for violation of its laws.
Accordingly, a sentence of fourteen years' imprisonment for the crime of
perjury has not been viewed as excessive nor as effecting any
unconstitutional deprivation of the defendant's liberty;[970] nor has
the imposition of successively heavier penalties upon "repeaters" been
considered as partaking of a "cruel and unusual punishment."[971]

In an older decision, Ex parte Kemmler,[972] rendered in 1890, the
Supreme Court rejected the suggestion that the substance of the Eighth
Amendment had been incorporated into the due process clause of the
Fourteenth Amendment, but did intimate that the latter clause would
invalidate punishments which would involve "torture or a lingering
death," such "as burning at the stake, crucifixion, breaking on the
wheel, and the like." Holding that the infliction of the death penalty
by electrocution was comparable to none of the latter, the Court refused
to interfere with the judgment of the State legislature that such a
method of executing the judgment of a court was humane. More recently,
in Louisiana ex rel. Francis _v._ Resweber,[973] five members of the
Court reached a similar conclusion as to the restraining effect of the
due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment when, assuming, "but
without so deciding" that violations of the Eighth Amendment as to cruel
and unusual punishments would also be violative of that clause, they
upheld a subsequent proceeding to execute a sentence of death by
electrocution after an accidental failure of equipment had rendered an
initial attempt unsuccessful.[974]

Double Jeopardy

In none of the pertinent cases