Furman v. Georgia
408 U.S. 238 (1972)
Rule of Law:
The imposition and carrying out of the death penalty under statutes that leave sentencing to the untrammeled discretion of a judge or jury is a cruel and unusual punishment that violates the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments.
Facts:
- William Furman, a Black man, was discovered burglarizing a private home. While attempting to flee, Furman tripped, causing his gun to fire through a closed door, killing the resident.
- Furman had a sixth-grade education and had been committed to a state hospital for a psychiatric examination, which found him to have 'Mental Deficiency, Mild to Moderate, with Psychotic Episodes'.
- Lucious Jackson, Jr., a Black man who had escaped from a work gang, broke into a woman's home and raped her at scissor-point. The victim sustained bruises but was not hospitalized.
- Elmer Branch, a Black man, broke into the home of a 65-year-old white widow while she was sleeping and raped her. Branch was determined to have a 'dull intelligence' and was in the lowest percentile of his class.
Procedural Posture:
- William Furman was convicted of murder in a Georgia trial court and sentenced to death by a jury.
- The Supreme Court of Georgia affirmed Furman's conviction and sentence.
- Lucious Jackson, Jr. was convicted of rape in a Georgia trial court and sentenced to death by a jury.
- The Supreme Court of Georgia affirmed Jackson's conviction and sentence.
- Elmer Branch was convicted of rape in a Texas trial court and sentenced to death by a jury.
- The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed Branch's conviction and sentence.
- The U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari in all three cases, limiting its review to whether the imposition of the death penalty constituted cruel and unusual punishment.
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Issue:
Does the imposition and carrying out of the death penalty in these cases, pursuant to statutes that grant the sentencing authority untrammeled discretion to impose or withhold the death penalty, constitute cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments?
Opinions:
Per curiam - The Court
Yes. The Court holds that the imposition and carrying out of the death penalty in these cases constitutes cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. The judgment in each case is reversed insofar as it leaves the death sentence undisturbed and the cases are remanded for further proceedings.
Concurring - Justice Douglas
Yes. The death penalty violates the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments because discretionary death penalty statutes are pregnant with discrimination and are selectively applied against minorities and the poor. A law that is non-discriminatory on its face but results in discriminatory application is unconstitutional, and the idea of equal protection is implicit in the Eighth Amendment's ban on 'cruel and unusual' punishments.
Concurring - Justice Brennan
Yes. The death penalty is a cruel and unusual punishment that does not comport with human dignity and is therefore unconstitutional in all circumstances. A punishment is cruel and unusual if it is unusually severe, has a strong probability of being inflicted arbitrarily, is substantially rejected by contemporary society, and serves no penal purpose more effectively than a less severe punishment. Death fails on all four principles.
Concurring - Justice Stewart
Yes. These death sentences are cruel and unusual in the same way that being struck by lightning is cruel and unusual. The petitioners are among a capriciously selected random handful upon whom the sentence of death has been imposed, while many others who committed equally reprehensible crimes were not. The Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments cannot tolerate the infliction of a sentence of death under legal systems that permit this unique penalty to be so wantonly and so freakishly imposed.
Concurring - Justice White
Yes. The death penalty, as administered under the statutes in these cases, violates the Eighth Amendment because it is so infrequently imposed that it ceases to be a credible deterrent or to measurably contribute to any other discernible social or public purpose. When a penalty is so rarely invoked, its imposition becomes a pointless and needless extinction of life with only marginal contributions to any social ends, rendering it a patently excessive and cruel and unusual punishment.
Concurring - Justice Marshall
Yes. The death penalty is an excessive and unnecessary punishment that violates the Eighth Amendment because it is morally unacceptable to the people of the United States. Analysis of its historical application and purposes, such as retribution and deterrence, reveals it serves no valid legislative purpose that cannot be achieved by less severe means. An informed citizenry would find it shocking to their conscience and sense of justice.
Dissenting - Chief Justice Burger
No. The constitutional prohibition against 'cruel and unusual punishments' cannot be construed to bar the imposition of the death penalty, as it was clearly contemplated by the Framers and has been consistently upheld by the Court. The majority's approach, which focuses on sentencing practices, misinterprets the Eighth Amendment and encroaches upon the legislative prerogative to determine punishments. In a democratic society, legislatures, not courts, are constituted to respond to the will and moral values of the people.
Analysis:
This landmark decision effectively created a nationwide moratorium on capital punishment by invalidating the discretionary death penalty statutes of 39 states. It did not hold the death penalty unconstitutional per se, but rather found its application under then-existing laws to be arbitrary and capricious. The ruling forced states to redraft their capital punishment laws, leading to a new era of jurisprudence focused on statutes providing for either mandatory death sentences or guided discretion to avoid the 'wanton' and 'freakish' imposition of the penalty, setting the stage for future cases like Gregg v. Georgia.
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