Why was Georgias capital punishment system found to be cruel and unusual in Furman v. Georgia?

Justia Opinion Summary and Annotations

Annotation

Primary Holding

The death penalty could be revived in Georgia, Florida, and Texas because the new law provided sufficient clarity and objectivity in defining which defendants could be eligible for capital punishment and gave juries sufficient discretion in choosing whether to apply it.

In 1972, the Supreme Court had ruled that the imposition of the death penalty under current systems of capital punishment violated the Eighth Amendment because of its arbitrary, unevenly imposed nature. This decision in Furman v. Georgia resulted in a moratorium on the death penalty while states that sought to retain capital punishment revised their systems for imposing it. Georgia, Florida, Texas, North Carolina, and Louisiana were five of the 35 states that amended their death penalty laws to comply with Furman.

In each of these states, a defendant who was sentenced to death under the new laws appealed the penalty on the grounds that capital punishment was categorically unconstititutional under the Eighth Amendment because it was cruel and unusual per se. The five cases were consolidated and heard together to determine whether the new death penalty systems in the five states were rational. Neither side was able to present conclusive evidence that the death penalty either deterred crime or failed to deter it. Still, the convicted defendants argued that it ran counter to human dignity, diverged from the current social consensus on the issue, and was disproportionate to the crimes committed.

Issue: Whether the death penalty was unconstitutional per se under the Eighth Amendment as cruel and unusual punishment.
Holding: No. Trends in both the political process and the judgments of juries suggest that there is still a social consensus in favor of retaining the death penalty. There is no conclusive evidence that it fails in its objective of deterring crime, and it does not offend human dignity because some crimes are so severe that the only appropriate response is capital punishment. Moreover, the death penalty is not disproportionate to the crime of murder

Plurality

• Potter Stewart (Author)
• Lewis Franklin Powell, Jr.
• John Paul Stevens

Following the guidelines stated in Furman, the majority analyzed whether each state had instituted a sufficiently objective process for determining whether an individual was eligible for the death penalty. It also considered whether each state gave judges and jurors sufficient discretion in determining whether the death penalty was appropriate in a certain situation, having evaluated mitigating and aggravating factors. (The Justices did not feel that a jury was necessary in all sentencing determinations and suggested that a judge might provide greater consistency.) The majority also noted that appellate review of any death sentence was essential and that this review must consist of a genuine evaluation of whether proper procedures were followed and the sentence was objectively rational. In fact, appeals in all states are mandatory and cannot even be waived.

Without going into the details of each state's scheme here, the majority approved the systems in states that limited the criteria that could make an individual eligible for capital punishment while giving broad discretion to sentencers (judge or jury) regarding whether it should be imposed on a certain defendant. These states were Georgia, Florida, and Texas. By contrast, North Carolina and Louisiana provided a relatively vague list of factors that could make an individual eligible for the death penalty and limited the abiility of decision-makers to refrain from imposing it in a certain instance. The majority also held, based on historical evidence, that a mandatory death penalty is unconstitutional per se.

Concurrence

• William Hubbs Rehnquist (Author)

Rehnquist felt that all five states met the guidelines under Furman and was not convinced that mandatory death penalties that removed discretion from judges and juries were per se unconstitutional. He argued that some arbitrariness was inevitable when juries impose the death penalty because there is no uniform system to compare their verdicts, and he did not feel that capital punishment merited any additional procedures beyond other criminal sentences.

Concurrence

• Byron Raymond White (Author)
• Warren Earl Burger
• William Hubbs Rehnquist

Although he did not see the need to bifurcate death penalty cases into guilt and sentencing phases, White largely echoed the majority's view that capital punishment is not unconstitutional, based on legislative initiatives keeping it in place. He also noted that substantial judicial precedents and references to the death penalty in the Constitution suggested that it should not be categorically struck down. White recommended that most issues concerning the uniformity of its imposition should be left to legislatures to resolve.

Concurrence

• Harry Andrew Blackmun (Author)

Dissent

• William Joseph Brennan, Jr. (Author)

Brennan would have struck down the death penalty per se, believing that it fails in its objective of deterring crime and does not serve a retributive purpose that is appropriate in current American society.

Dissent

• Thurgood Marshall (Author)

Agreeing with Brennan that the death penalty was unconstitutional, Marshall would follow his lead in voting against it in every capital punishment case that the Court would consider during his time on the bench.

Mandatory death penalty statutes remain unconstitutional per se, but courts otherwise have wavered in how much discretion a jury should have during the sentencing phase of a capital trial. Often known as the July 2 cases, this group of decisions served as the origin of modern jurisprudence on capital punishment. Its application has been steadily restricted even further with time, including in cases involving mentally deficient defendants, children, and people convicted of crimes other than murder. The Court also has made every effort to ensure that mitigating factors are considered as broadly and aggravating factors as narrowly as possible.

Following the rulings in Gregg and the related cases, capital punishment resumed in 1977 in Utah. No nationwide moratorium similar to Furman has been placed on it since then.

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In 1972, the Supreme Court ruled that the death penalty systems then in place were unconstitutional violations of the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on “cruel and unusual” punishments. In response to the decision many states changed their death penalty systems. Four years later in Gregg v. Georgia(1976), the Court reaffirmed the death penalty as constitutional.

Resources

• Gregg v. Georgia, Oyez Project

Summary

In Furman v. Georgia (1972), the Supreme Court ruled that the death penalty systems currently in place were unconstitutional violations of the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on “cruel and unusual” punishments. The Court noted that there were no rational, objective standards for when the death penalty would be given. Justice Potter Stewart described the death penalty system at the time as “cruel and unusual in the same way that being struck by lightning is cruel and unusual.” In other words, it was not the death penalty itself that was unconstitutional, but rather, the random way it was applied made it cruel and unusual. A moratorium, or temporary ban, of the death penalty went into effect in the United States. In response to the decision, 35 states changed their death penalty systems in order to comply with the Court’s ruling. Four years later the case of Gregg v. Georgia (1976) reached the Court. Troy Gregg had been found guilty of murder and armed robbery and sentenced to death. He asked the Court to go further than it had in the Furman case, and rule the death penalty itself unconstitutional. The Court refused to do so. The Court found that Georgia’s system for applying the death penalty was “judicious” and “careful.” Gregg had gone through two trials – one to determine guilt and one for sentencing. Further, specific jury findings of “aggravating circumstances” were necessary to impose the death penalty. There was therefore no Eighth Amendment violation, and the death penalty was constitutional. The Court ruled, “The imposition of the death penalty for the crime of murder has a long history of acceptance both in the United States and in England[.]  At the time the Eighth Amendment was ratified, capital punishment was a common sanction in every State…” Finally, the Court said it could not overrule the judgment of Georgia’s legislature as to the usefulness of the death penalty. “Considerations of federalism, as well as respect for the ability of a legislature to evaluate…the moral consensus concerning the death penalty and its social utility as a sanction, require us to conclude, in the absence of more convincing evidence, that the infliction of death as a punishment for murder is not without justification and thus is not unconstitutionally severe.”

Questions

1. Why did the Court rule that the death penalty system was unconstitutional in 1972?
2. Why did the Court uphold Troy Gregg’s sentence in 1976?
3. What was the Court’s reasoning in holding that the death penalty itself is not unconstitutional?
4. In his dissent, Justice Thurgood Marshall wrote, “The mere fact that the community demands the murderer’s life in return for the evil he has done cannot sustain the death penalty…The death penalty, unnecessary to promote the goal of deterrence or to further any legitimate notion of retribution, is an excessive penalty.” Do you agree? Why or why not?