Furman v. Georgia

Furman v. Georgia
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued January 17, 1972 Decided June 29, 1972
Full case name	William Henry Furman v. State of Georgia
Citations	408 U.S. 238 (more) 92 S. Ct. 2726; 33 L. Ed. 2d 346; 1972 U.S. LEXIS 169
Case history
Prior	Certiorari granted (403 U.S. 952)
Subsequent	Rehearing denied (409 U.S. 902)
Holding
The arbitrary and inconsistent imposition of the death penalty violates the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments, and constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.
Court membership
Chief Justice Warren E. Burger Associate Justices William O. Douglas · William J. Brennan Jr. Potter Stewart · Byron White Thurgood Marshall · Harry Blackmun Lewis F. Powell Jr. · William Rehnquist
Case opinions
Majority	per curiam
Concurrence	Douglas
Concurrence	Brennan
Concurrence	Stewart
Concurrence	White
Concurrence	Marshall
Dissent	Burger, joined by Blackmun, Powell, Rehnquist
Dissent	Blackmun
Dissent	Powell, joined by Burger, Blackmun, Rehnquist
Dissent	Rehnquist, joined by Burger, Blackmun, Powell
Laws applied
U.S. Const. amends. VIII, XIV
Overruled by
Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153 (1976)

Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238 (1972) was a United States Supreme Court decision that ruled on the requirement for a degree of consistency in the application of the death penalty. The Court consolidated Jackson v. Georgia and Branch v. Texas with the Furman decision, and thus also invalidated the death penalty for rape. The court had also intended to include the case of Aikens v. California, but between the time Aikens had been heard in oral argument and a decision was to be issued, the Supreme Court of California decided in California v. Anderson that the death penalty violated the state constitution, thus Aikens case was dismissed as moot since all death cases in California were overturned.

A homeowner of a house came home while William Henry Furman was burglarizing it. While trying to escape, Furman tripped and the weapon he was carrying fired accidentally. One of the homeowners was shot and killed. Furman was tried for murder and was found guilty. He was sentenced to death.

Justice Potter Stewart, as one of the majority, wrote that "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. My concurring Brothers have demonstrated that, 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. See McLaughlin v. Florida, 379 U.S. 184 (1964) But racial discrimination has not been proved, and I put it to one side. I simply conclude that 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."

Two other Justices came to comparable conclusions based on factors including the quality of legal representation provided. Justices Brennan and Marshall concurred on the grounds that the death penalty was incompatible with the evolving standards of decency of a contemporary society. The dissenting justices held that capital punishment had always been regarded as appropriate under the Anglo-American legal tradition for serious crimes and that the text of the Constitution did not support the invalidation of all United States death penalty laws.

In the following four years, 37 states enacted new death penalty laws aimed at overcoming Stewart's objections to the lack of standards to guide the discretion of juries and judges in imposing capital sentences. The new laws were in large part upheld in a series of decisions in 1976, led by Gregg v. Georgia. i luv monkeys!!!!do u???

External links

• Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238 (1976) (full text with links to cited material)

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