Eighth Amendment Case Studies

Eighth Amendment Case Studies  

Furman v. Georgia (1972) 

In 1967, William Furman, a Black man, robbed a home in Georgia. In the process, the homeowner was shot and killed under questionable circumstances. Furman initially said he fired a shot blindly while fleeing with no intent to kill after he was confronted by the homeowner. Later Furman changed his statement, saying instead that he fell, and the gun discharged accidentally. Either way, because the shooting occurred during the commission of a felony, it qualified as murder under state law. As a result, if convicted Furman was eligible for the death penalty. A jury found him guilty, and Furman was sentenced to death. Furman and other defendants on death row in other criminal cases appealed to the Supreme Court, arguing the death penalty was unconstitutional. They insisted that in their cases, the death penalty violated the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Furman. The majority had differing reasons for determining why the death penalty in Furman’s case was unconstitutional. A plurality of three justices argued that the imposition of the death penalty in all states was at the time being imposed arbitrarily and could reflect racial discrimination. These justices determined the death penalty was given as a sentence far more frequently when the defendant was Black. Justice Potter Stewart wrote, “These death sentences are cruel and unusual in the same way that being struck by lightning is cruel and unusual. For, of all the people convicted of rapes and murders in 1967 and 1968, many just as reprehensible as these, the petitioners are among a capriciously selected random handful upon whom the sentence of death has in fact been imposed…if any basis can be discerned for the selection of these few to be sentenced to death, it is the constitutionally impermissible basis of race.” However, the plurality did not determine that the death penalty was always unconstitutional, only in the way it was being applied at the time.

Chief Justice Warren Burger wrote a dissenting opinion, arguing that the Court was invalidating laws that had been passed by the people through their state legislatures, as well as decisions made by juries in specific cases. He said, “It would, of course, be unrealistic to assume that juries have been perfectly consistent in choosing the cases where the death penalty is to be imposed, for no human institution performs with perfect consistency. There are doubtless prisoners on death row who would not be there had they been tried before a different jury or in a different State. In this sense, their fate has been controlled by a fortuitous circumstance. However, this element of fortuity does not stand as an indictment either of the general functioning of juries in capital cases or of the integrity of jury decisions in individual cases. There is no empirical basis for concluding that juries have generally failed to discharge in good faith the responsibility…of choosing between life and death in individual cases according to the dictates of community values.”

In the aftermath of the decision, states revised their laws regarding the application of the death penalty in order to fit the parameters of what the Court would deem constitutional. However, the death penalty remained a controversial punishment, with many arguing it violates the Eighth Amendment even when racially neutral.

  

Gregg v. Georgia (1976)  

Following the decision in Furman v. Georgia (1972), Georgia changed its laws to meet the racially neutral death penalty standards the Supreme Court had established. A few years after the Furman decision, a jury convicted Troy Gregg of two counts of armed robbery and two counts of murder. A jury determined he should be given the death sentence. Gregg appealed to the Supreme Court, arguing that the death penalty, even when sentenced in a non-discriminatory manner, violated the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

In a 7-2 decision, the Court ruled against Gregg and found the death penalty was not inherently incompatible with the Eighth Amendment. Justices Potter Stewart, Lewis Powell, and John Paul Stevens co-wrote the plurality opinion. They argued that what constitutes cruel and unusual punishment shifts as society changes. The justices determined American society still viewed the death penalty as acceptable, arguing, “The most marked indication of society’s endorsement of the death penalty for murder is the legislative response to Furman. The legislatures of at least 35 States have enacted new statutes that provide for the death penalty for at least some crimes that result in the death of another person. And the Congress of the United States, in 1974, enacted a statute providing the death penalty for aircraft piracy that results in death.”

Justice Thurgood Marshall wrote a dissenting opinion in which he argued the death penalty was unconstitutional in all cases. He believed it was immoral and wrote, “If the constitutionality of the death penalty turns, as I have urged, on the opinion of an informed citizenry, then even the enactment of new death statutes cannot be viewed as conclusive. In Furman, I observed that the American people are largely unaware of the information critical to a judgment on the morality of the death penalty, and concluded that, if they were better informed, they would consider it shocking, unjust, and unacceptable.”

The decision in Gregg v. Georgia (1976) was limited in its application, leaving state governments and future Court decisions to further work out in which situations the death penalty would be unconstitutional. This upheld the principle of federalism by allowing the people to determine how to punish convicted criminals through their state legislatures.