In Williams v. State of Oklahoma (1959) 358 U.S. 576, the United States Supreme Court established "the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment does not, nor does anything in the Constitution, require a State to fix or impose any particular penalty for any crime it may define or to impose the same 'proportionate' sentences for separate and independent crimes." ( Id. at p. 586.) A state legislature has the sole discretion to determine the appropriate penalty for state crimes, within the confines of the Eighth Amendment's protection against cruel and unusual punishment.