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The consequences of the Furman Georgia case
History of the death penalty in america
What court heard the Furman v Georgia case before the Supreme Court
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As controversial as the death penalty was and could still be, there was a period between 1972-1976 in which death penalty came to a halt. This pause was better known as a moratorium, a legally approved period of delay.
The US Supreme Court decisions involved in moratorium were all in regards to the Furman v. Georgia case of 1972. Furman was robbing a home when a family member discovered him, and as he attempted to flee, he tumbled and collapsed. The firearm that he was carrying went off and killed a resident of the home. He was convicted of murder and sentenced to death. Two other death sentence cases chosen along with Furman was Jackson v. Georgia and Branch v. Texas. These cases had to do with whether or not there was accordance with the Constitution over the death punishment/time spent for crimes such as rape and murder.
Therefore, with the Furman decision, the Supreme Court set the standard that a punishment would be "cruel and unusual" if it was too extreme and did not fit the crime, offended the community of people’s sense of justice, or it if was not more effective than a less risky penalty.
The Court held that Georgia's death penalty statute, due to
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nine separate opinions, and by a vote of five to four, this gave the jury complete sentencing discretion, could result in arbitrary sentencing. The Court held that the arbitrary plan of punishment under the statute as "cruel and unusual" and that it happened to violate the Eighth Amendment. Thus, resulting in the Supreme Court effectively discharging forty death penalty statutes, in that manner reducing the sentences of 629 death row convicts around the country and suspending the death penalty since existing laws were no longer valid on June 29, 1972. The Court's one-page unanimous agreement held that the forcing of the death penalty in these cases was equivalent to cruel and unusual punishment and violated the Constitution. In over two hundred pages of agreement and disagreements, the judges clearly stated their views on this controversial subject. Only Judges Brennan and Marshall believed that the death penalty was going against the Constitution regardless of the crime. Other agreements focused on the arbitrary nature with which death punishments and sentencing have been forced on people, often showing an unfair penalty based on race, for instance, against black defendants. Advocates of capital punishment began proposing new laws in which they believed would end arbitrariness in capital punishment. Florida led the states and rewrote its death penalty statute five months after Furman. Thirty-four other states proceeded to use new death penalty statutes. Some countries removed all of that discretion by mandating capital punishment for those convicted of capital crimes to confront the unconstitutionality of unguided jury discretion. Other states sought to only limit that discretion by providing guidelines for the judge and jury.
These guidelines allowed for the introduction of aggravating and mitigating circumstances in determining to sentence. The Court also held that the death penalty itself was constitutional under the Eighth Amendment. Mitigating factors is evidence the defense can present in the sentencing phase of a trial to provide reasons why there is a possibility that the defendant excused from the death penalty. This evidence can include mental illness, guilt, age, childhood abuse, a minor role in a murder, or no prior criminal record; the culpability may decrease if the defendant provides other reasons for taking a life sentence instead of the death penalty. The jury may consider any mitigating evidence a juror finds
relevant. In the other hand, measures were taken such as limiting eligibility for the death penalty. In 1977 the death penalty reinstated, it outlined aggravating factors which would make a defendant eligible for the ultimate punishment, for example, murdering a firefighter, police officer, or correctional officer, homicide while committing another felony, killing more than two people, killing for hire. These conditions limited arbitrariness on the part of state's attorneys who chose when to request the death penalty. These Court decisions are still relevant as they forced states and the national government to rethink their laws for capital offenses to promise that the death penalty would not give in an unpredictable (or racist) manner, making this circumstance a valid concern in the Death Penalty Controversy today. The ten-year moratorium ended on January 17, 1977, with the execution of Gary Gilmore in Utah. Oklahoma was the first state to utilize the lethal injection in 1977 as a means of implementation, followed five years later in Texas when Charles Brooks became the first man executed by lethal injection on December 7, 1982. Ultimately as risque as the topic of death penalty happens to be, the consequences of the moratorium of the death penalty between 1972-1976 has majorly affected the procedure of this punishment up to this day with its rules and conditions.
Facts: Rex Marshall testified that the deceased came into his store intoxicated, and started whispering things to his wife. The defendant stated that he ordered the deceased out of the store immediately, however the deceased refused to leave and started acting in an aggressive manner; by slamming his hate down on the counter. He then reached for the hammer, the defendant states he had reason to believe the deceased was going to hit him with the hammer attempting to kill him. Once the deceased reached for the hammer the defendant shot him almost immediately.
.... Madison was applied to this decision because the actions committed were unconstitutional. According to the Supreme Court the 8th Amendment was broken because the District Court of Appeal was giving a cruel and unusual punishment to Graham. The 8th amendment claus does not allow a juvenile offender to be sentenced to life in jail without a parole for a non-homicidal crime. Therefore Terrance could not fall through with this punishment.
The Tennessee v. Garner case impacted law enforcement agencies today by utilizing the Fourth Amendment right of not using deadly force to prevent a suspect from fleeing unless the officer is in imminent danger of their life. Consequently, before this was set into place, an officer had the right to use deadly force on a fleeing suspect by all means.” The first time the Court dealt with the use of force was in Tennessee v. Garner, in Garner, a police officer used deadly force despite being "reasonably sure" that the suspect was an unarmed teenager "of slight build" who was running away from him” (Gross,2016). Whereas, with Graham v. Conner case was surrounded around excessive force which also has an impact on law enforcement agencies in today’s society as well. “All claims that law enforcement officers have used excessive force deadly or not in the course of an arrest, investigatory stop, or other “seizure” of s free citizen should be analyzed under the Fourth Amendment and its “reasonableness” standard” (Doerner,2016).
The case Worcester v. Georgia (1832) was a basis for the discussion of the issue of states' rights versus the federal government as played out in the administration of President Andrew Jackson and its battle with the Supreme Court. In addition to the constitutional issues involved, the momentum of the westward movement and popular support for Indian resettlement pitted white man against Indian. All of these factors came together in the Worcester case, which alarmed the independence of the Cherokee Nation, but which was not enforced. This examines the legal issues and tragic consequences of Indian resettlement.
Weems v. United States (1910) set a judicial precedent for showing that punishment must be proportionate to the crime committed and allowed courts to decide what is “cruel and unusual”. Lower courts allowed the VIS and that use sometimes came under question. Thus the case was sent to the U.S. Supreme Court to review. In Booth v. Maryland (1987) and Gathers v. South Carolina (1989) the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that VIS could potentially lead to harsher sentences and yet upon further review reconsider their stance on VIS and overturn their decisions and concluded that the Eight Amendment was not violated by victim Impact statements on the ground that such statements did not lead to cruel and unusual punish...
Opponents of the death punishment lauded the Supreme Court decision in the 1972 ruling that a jury's unregulated option to impose the death penalty led toward a "wanton and freakish pattern of its use" that was cruel and unusual. However, the anti-death penalty lobby was not the outright winners because the court failed to call the death penalty unconstitutional. Just a few years later, capital punishment was back with full force in the United States.
After Echols executions 21 years later laws changed and capital punishment popularity was decreasing. In 1974, juveniles were once again back on the death row. Three decades later the U.S Supreme
"Capital punishment is a term which indicates muddled thinking." George Bernard Shaw The "muddled thinking" that Shaw speaks of is the thinking that perpetuates the controversy over capital punishment in the United States today. The impractical concurrence of a theoretical, moral argument and definite, legal application has left all sides in this controversy dissatisfied with the ultimate handling of the issue. There are legitimate ethical and empirical considerations that stand on both the side that favors and on the side that opposes the death penalty. The general incompatibility of these considerations renders them irreconcilable. It is within this condition of irreconcilability that the government must initiate and implement its policies regarding capital punishment. This fixed condition has led to the necessity for and creation of comprises between both sites of this debate, attempting to synthesize the considerations of the two. The contentious issue of the capital punishment was rekindled in the 1970s when, in 1976, the Supreme reinstated the practice after a four-year hiatus. The arguments that comprise much of the legal debate on the issue stem from the eighth and fourteenth amendments to the United States Constitution. The eighth reads, "Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted." 1
There is still confusion about what is actually constitutes “cruel and unusual punishment.” There have been several court cases of interest that have challenged and redefined this concept. In Louisiana ex. Rel. Francis v. Resweber, a convicted murdered was subject to a botched execution, and subsequently argued that a second attempt at execution would be a violation of the Eighth Amendment constituting cruel and unusual punishment. While the Supreme Court rejected this argument, stating that the eighth amendment applies to “cruelty inherent in the method of punishment.” I found it interesting that in the Case of Trop v. Dulles the Supreme Court ruled that loss of citizenship did constitute cruel and unusual punishment. The Supreme Courts position was that to revoke citizenship would be “to subject the individual to a fate forbidden by the principles of civilized treatment guaranteed by the Eighth Amendment.”
In the early 1950’s, the number of executions sharply declined. Opponents of the death penalty claimed that it violated the Eighth Amendment, which forbids cruel and unusual punishment. Opponents also claimed the death penalty violated the Fourteenth Amendment, which states that all citizens are entitled to equal protection under the law. In early 1972, William Furman was convicted of burglary and murder. While Furman was burglarizing a home, a resident arrived at the scene. Startled, Furman tried to flee, but tripped and fell in the process. The gun Furman was carrying discharged, killing the resident in the process. Furman did not believe he deserved the death penalty. The constitutionality of capital punishment in this circumstance was considered in the supreme co...
... rape or treason was committed ("8th Amendment to the Constitution – U.S. Amendment VIII Summary"). However, there are some cases where the death penalty is unacceptable regardless of the crime. In the Supreme Court case of Roper v Simmons the court decided that the execution of someone for a crime they committed when they were a minor violated the eighth amendment . The court case of Atkins v Virginia established that the death penalty is not an acceptable punishment for mentally ill felons (Lemieux, "The Supreme Court's Empty Eighth Amendment Promise"). The Supreme Court has also ruled that executing anyone under the age of 18 is an act of cruel and unusual punishment ("8th Amendment to the Constitution – U.S. Amendment VIII Summary"). The death penalty is the worst punishment a person could get, and because of that there are many restrictions on when to use it.
By the mid 1960s, the death penalty seemed fated for extinction. Only seven executions were conducted in 1965 and only one in 1966. For about ten years supporters and opposers of capital punishment looked to the Supreme Court for a final ruling on the constitutionality of the death penalty. The word came out in 1976 in the case of Gregg v. Georgia. The court ruled that, " the punishment of death does not violate the Constitution."
In 1972, the Supreme Court in Furman v. Georgia ruled that the death penalty for murder was unconstitutional. They also argue that the death penalty costs too much to carry out (Academic American Encyclopedia "Capital Punishment").
Americans have argued over the death penalty since the early days of our country. In the United States only 38 states have capital punishment statutes. As of year ended in 1999, in Texas, the state had executed 496 prisoners since 1930. The laws in the United States have change drastically in regards to capital punishment. An example of this would be the years from 1968 to 1977 due to the nearly 10 year moratorium. During those years, the Supreme Court ruled that capital punishment violated the Eight Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment. However, this ended in 1976, when the Supreme Court reversed the ruling. They stated that the punishment of sentencing one to death does not perpetually infringe the Constitution. Richard Nixon said, “Contrary to the views of some social theorists, I am convinced that the death penalty can be an effective deterrent against specific crimes.”1 Whether the case be morally, monetarily, or just pure disagreement, citizens have argued the benefits of capital punishment. While we may all want murders off the street, the problem we come to face is that is capital punishment being used for vengeance or as a deterrent.
During the past three decades the issue of capital punishment has been very controversial inside the United States. During 1972 the U.S. Supreme Court decided in Furman v. Georgia that the death penalty was unconstitutional because it was a form of "cruel and unusual punishment." However, this decision did not last long; in July 1975 the Supreme Court ruled that capital punishment did not violate any parts of the Constitution. Executions as they had before 1972 resumed again. Since then 180 prisoners have been executed. The United States Supreme Court should abolish the death penalty because it is a form of "cruel and unusual punishment."