Which Court case determined that the administration of the death penalty violated the 8th Amendment and was deemed cruel and unusual punishment?
Eighth AmendmentExcessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted. Show
A prohibition on "cruel and unusual punishment" first appeared in the English Bill of Rights, in 1689. The ban was adopted by American colonists in some colonial legislation, and was also included in most of the original state constitutions. It became part of the U.S. Bill of Rights in 1791 as the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. In the early years of the republic, the phrase "cruel and unusual punishment" was interpreted as prohibiting torture and particularly barbarous punishments. At the start of the 20th century, the Supreme Court decided in Weems v. United States (1910) that excessive punishments disproportionate to the offense could also be "cruel and unusual." The Court has consistently ruled that capital punishment itself is not a violation of the Eighth Amendment, but that some applications of the death penalty are "cruel and unusual." For example, the Court has ruled that execution of mentally retarded people is unconstitutionally cruel and unusual, as is the death penalty for people who were under age 18 at the time of their crime. What limits should the Eighth Amendment place upon punishment, including the death penalty, today? What information should we use to determine the "standards of decency" in today's society? These are some of the questions raised by the discussion starters under the topic of "cruel and unusual punishment." A part of the Bill of Rights, the Eighth Amendment provides several important protections for people who are convicted of a crime. And perhaps the most widely known portion of the amendment is the protection against "cruel and unusual punishment." Unsurprisingly, this is the language often discussed when it comes to the death penalty. Over the years, the Supreme Court has had to decide whether the Eighth Amendment bars the death penalty - and if not, how far can it go. If someone you know has been charged with a violent crime, it's essential to seek legal assistance right away. Start with FindLaw's directory of criminal defense attorneys to find legal counsel near you. Learn More
Frequently Asked QuestionsDoes the death penalty violate the 8th Amendment? The Supreme Court has held that a death sentence is not inherently cruel and unusual. But, they have concluded laws that make the death penalty mandatory, leaving the jury or trial judge no discretion to consider the individual defendant and their crime, is cruel and unusual. The Court has also identified certain types of cases where the death penalty rises to the level of cruel and unusual punishment. Learn more here... Can a teenager get the death penalty? In some cases, yes. In 1989, the Supreme Court held that crimes committed when someone is 16 or 17 can result in a death sentence without violating the Eighth Amendment. What the Eighth Amendment Says"Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted." What It MeansUnited States Library of Congress, The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation In Trop v. Dulles, the majority refused to consider "the death penalty as an index of the constitutional limit on punishment. Whatever the arguments may be against capital punishment . . . the death penalty has been employed throughout our history, and, in a day when it is still widely accepted, it cannot be said to violate the constitutional concept of cruelty."1 But a coalition of civil rights and civil liberties organizations mounted a campaign against the death penalty in the 1960s, and the Court eventually confronted the issues involved. The answers were not, it is fair to say, consistent. A series of cases testing the means by which the death penalty was imposed2 culminated in what appeared to be a decisive rejection of the attack in McGautha v. California.3 The Court added a fourth major guideline in 2002, holding that the Sixth Amendment right to trial by jury comprehends the right to have a jury make factual determinations on which a sentencing increase is based.4 This means that capital sentencing schemes are unconstitutional if judges are allowed to make factual findings as to the existence of aggravating circumstances that are prerequisites for the imposition of a death sentence. Furman v. Georgia Casts Doubt on Death PenaltyThe Court's 1972 decision in Furman v. Georgia,5 finding constitutional deficiencies but not holding the death penalty unconstitutional per se, was a watershed in capital punishment jurisprudence. In the long run, the ruling may have had only a minor effect in determining who is sentenced to death and who is actually executed, but it had the indisputable effect of constitutionalizing capital sentencing law and of involving federal courts in an extensive review of capital sentences.6 Prior to 1972, constitutional law governing capital punishment was relatively simple and straightforward. Capital punishment was constitutional, and there were few grounds for constitutional review. Furman and the five 1976 follow-up cases that reviewed state laws revised in light of Furman reaffirmed the constitutionality of capital punishment. But, they also opened up several avenues for constitutional review. The Court held in Furman7 that the death penalty, at least as administered, violated the Eighth Amendment. There was no unifying opinion of the Court in Furman; the five Justices in the majority each approached the matter from a different angle in a separate concurring opinion. Two justices concluded that the death penalty was cruel and unusual per se because the imposition of capital punishment does not comport with human dignity8 or because it is morally unacceptable and excessive.9 One justice concluded that because death is a penalty inflicted on the poor and hapless defendant but not the affluent and socially better defendant, it violates the implicit requirement of equality of treatment found within the Eighth Amendment.10 Two justices concluded that capital punishment was both cruel and unusual because it was applied in an arbitrary, wanton, and freakish manner11 and so infrequently that it served no justifying end.12 Since 1976, the Court has issued a welter of decisions attempting to apply and reconcile the sometimes conflicting principles it had announced: that sentencing discretion must be confined through the application of specific guidelines that narrow and define the category of death-eligible defendants and thereby prevent arbitrary imposition of the death penalty, but that jury discretion must also be preserved in order to weigh the mitigating circumstances of individual defendants who fall within the death-eligible class. The States Respond With New Death Penalty StatutesBecause only two of the justices in Furman thought the death penalty to be invalid in all circumstances, those who wished to reinstate the penalty concentrated upon drafting statutes that would correct the faults identified in the other three majority opinions.13 Enactment of death penalty statutes by 35 states following Furman led to renewed litigation, but not to the elucidation one might expect from a series of opinions.14 Instead, although the Court seemed firmly on the path to the conclusion that only criminal acts that result in the deliberate taking of human life may be punished by the state's taking of human life,15 it chose several different paths in attempting to delineate the acceptable procedural devices that must be instituted in order that death may be constitutionally pronounced and carried out. The Court determined that the penalty of death for deliberate murder is not per se cruel and unusual, but that mandatory death statutes leaving the jury or trial judge no discretion to consider the individual defendant and his crime are cruel and unusual, and that standards and procedures may be established for the imposition of death that would remove or mitigate the arbitrariness and irrationality found so significant in Furman.16 Divisions among the Justices, however, made it difficult to ascertain the form that permissible statutory schemes may take.17 Because the three justices in the majority in Furman who did not altogether reject the death penalty thought the problems with the system revolved about discriminatory and arbitrary imposition,18 legislatures turned to the enactment of statutes that purported to do away with these difficulties. One approach was to provide for automatic imposition of the death penalty upon conviction for certain forms of murder. More commonly, states established special procedures to follow in capital cases and specified aggravating and mitigating factors that the sentencing authority must consider in imposing sentences. In five cases in 1976, the Court rejected automatic sentencing but approved other statutes specifying factors for jury consideration.19 First, the Court concluded that the death penalty as a punishment for murder does not itself constitute cruel and unusual punishment. Although there were differences of degree among the seven justices in the majority on this point, they all seemed to concur that reenactment of capital punishment statutes by 35 states precluded the Court from concluding that this form of penalty was no longer acceptable to a majority of the American people. Rather, they concluded, a large proportion of American society continued to regard it as an appropriate and necessary criminal sanction. Neither is it possible, the Court continued, to rule that the death penalty does not comport with the basic concept of human dignity at the core of the Eighth Amendment. Courts are not free to substitute their own judgments for the people and their elected representatives. A death penalty statute, just as all other statutes, comes before the courts bearing a presumption of validity that can be overcome only upon a strong showing by those who attack its constitutionality. Whether in fact the death penalty validly serves the permissible functions of retribution and deterrence, the judgments of the state legislatures are that it does, and those judgments are entitled to deference. Therefore, the infliction of death as a punishment for murder is not without justification and is not unconstitutionally severe. Nor is the punishment of death disproportionate to the crime being punished, murder.20 Second, however, a different majority concluded that statutes mandating the imposition of death for crimes classified as first-degree murder violate the Eighth Amendment. A review of history, traditional usage, legislative enactments, and jury determinations led the plurality to conclude that mandatory death sentences had been rejected by contemporary standards. Moreover, mandatory sentencing precludes the individualized consideration of the character and record of the offender and the circumstances of the particular offense that the fundamental respect for humanity underlying the Eighth Amendment requires in capital cases.21 A third principle established by the 1976 cases was that the procedure by which a death sentence is imposed must be structured so as to reduce arbitrariness and capriciousness as much as possible.22 What emerged from the prevailing plurality opinion in these cases are requirements that:
The Court later ruled, however, that proportionality review is not constitutionally required.27 Gregg, Proffitt, and Jurek did not require such comparative proportionality review, the Court noted, but merely suggested that proportionality review is one means by which a state may safeguard against arbitrarily imposed death sentences.28 Is the Death Penalty Discriminatory?One of the principal objections to the imposition of the death penalty, voiced by Justice Douglas in his concurring opinion in Furman, was that it was not being administered fairly—that the capital sentencing laws vesting practically untrammeled discretion on juries were being used as vehicles for racial discrimination, and that discrimination is an ingredient not compatible with the idea of equal protection of the laws that is implicit in the ban on "cruel and unusual" punishments.29 This argument has not carried the day. Although the Court has acknowledged the possibility that the death penalty may be administered in a racially discriminatory manner, it has made proof of such discrimination quite difficult. A measure of protection against jury bias was provided by the Court's holding that a capital defendant accused of an interracial crime is entitled to have prospective jurors informed of the race of the victim and questioned on the issue of racial bias.30 Proof of prosecution bias is another matter. The Court ruled in McCleskey v. Kemp31 that a strong statistical showing of racial disparity in capital sentencing cases is insufficient to establish an Eighth Amendment violation. Statistics alone do not establish racial discrimination in any particular case, the Court concluded, but at most show only a likelihood that a particular factor entered into some decisions.32 Just as important to the outcome, however, was the Court's application of the two overarching principles of prior capital punishment cases: that a state's system must narrow a sentencer's discretion to impose the death penalty (e.g., by carefully defining aggravating circumstances), but must not constrain a sentencer's discretion to consider mitigating factors relating to the character of the defendant. Although the dissenters saw the need to narrow discretion in order to reduce the chance that racial discrimination underlies jury decisions to impose the death penalty,33 the majority emphasized the need to preserve jury discretion not to impose capital punishment. Reliance on statistics to establish a prima facie case of discrimination, the Court feared, could undermine the requirement that capital sentencing jurors focus their collective judgment on the unique characteristics of a particular criminal defendant—a focus that can result in final and unreviewable leniency.34 The Role of the Jury in Death Penalty CasesMost states responded to the 1976 requirement that the sentencing authority's discretion be narrowed by enacting statutes spelling out aggravating circumstances, and requiring that at least one such aggravating circumstance be found before the death penalty is imposed. The Court has required that the standards be relatively precise and instructive to minimize the risk of arbitrary and capricious action by the sentencer, the desired result being a principled way to distinguish cases in which the death penalty should be imposed from cases in which it should not be. Thus, the Court invalidated a capital sentence based upon a jury finding that the murder was outrageously or wantonly vile, horrible, and inhuman, reasoning that a person of ordinary sensibility could fairly [so] characterize almost every murder.35 Similarly, an especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel aggravating circumstance was held to be unconstitutionally vague.36 The especially heinous, cruel, or depraved standard is cured, however, by a narrowing interpretation requiring a finding of infliction of mental anguish or physical abuse before the victim's death.37 The proscription against a mandatory death penalty has also received elaboration. The Court invalidated statutes making death the mandatory sentence for persons convicted of first-degree murder of a police officer,38 and for prison inmates convicted of murder while serving a life sentence without possibility of parole.39 Flaws related to those attributed to mandatory sentencing statutes were found in a state's structuring of its capital system to deny the jury the option of convicting on a lesser included offense, when doing so would be justified by the evidence.40 Because the jury had to choose between conviction or acquittal, the statute created the risk that the jury would convict because it felt the defendant deserved to be punished or acquit because it believed death was too severe for the particular crime, when at that stage the jury should concentrate on determining whether the prosecution had proved defendant's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.41 The overarching principle of Furman and of the Gregg series of cases was that the jury should not be without guidance or direction in deciding whether a convicted defendant should live or die. The jury's attention was statutorily directed to the specific circumstances of the crime and on the characteristics of the person who committed the crime.42 Discretion was channeled and rationalized. But, in Lockett v. Ohio,43 a Court plurality determined that a state law was invalid because it prevented the sentencer from giving weight to any mitigating factors other than those specified in the law. In other words, the jury's discretion was curbed too much. "[W]e conclude that the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments require that the sentencer, in all but the rarest kind of capital case, not be precluded from considering as a mitigating factor, any aspect of a defendant's character or record and any of the circumstances of the offense that the defendant proffers as a basis for a sentence less than death."44 Similarly, the reason that a three-justice plurality viewed North Carolina's mandatory death sentence for persons convicted of first-degree murder as invalid was that it failed to allow the particularized consideration of relevant aspects of the character and record of each convicted defendant.45 Lockett and Woodson have since been endorsed by a Court majority.46 Thus, a great measure of discretion was again accorded the sentencing authority, be it judge or jury, subject only to the consideration that the legislature must prescribe aggravating factors.47 The Court has explained this apparent contradiction as constituting recognition that individual culpability is not always measured by the category of crime committed,48 and as the product of an attempt to pursue the twin objectives of measured, consistent application of the death penalty and fairness to the accused.49 The requirement that aggravating circumstances be spelled out by statute serves a narrowing purpose that helps with consistency of application; the absence of restriction on mitigating evidence helps promote fairness to the accused through an individualized consideration of his circumstances. In the Court's words, "statutory aggravating circumstances play a constitutionally necessary function at the stage of legislative definition [by] circumscribing the class of persons eligible for the death penalty,"50 while consideration of all mitigating evidence requires focus on the character and record of the individual offender and the circumstances of the particular offense consistent with the fundamental respect for humanity underlying the Eighth Amendment.51 As long as the defendant's crime falls within the statutorily narrowed class, the jury may then conduct an individualized determination on the basis of the character of the individual and the circumstances of the crime.52 So far, the Justices who favor abandonment of the Lockett and Woodson approach have not prevailed. The Court has, however, given states greater leeway in fashioning procedural rules that have the effect of controlling how juries may use mitigating evidence that must be admitted and considered.53 States may also cure some constitutional errors on appeal through operation of harmless error rules and reweighing of evidence by the appellate court.54 Also, the Court has constrained the use of federal habeas corpus to review state court judgments. As a result of these trends, the Court recognizes a significant degree of state autonomy in capital sentencing in spite of its rulings on substantive Eighth Amendment law.55 While holding fast to the Lockett requirement that sentencers be allowed to consider all mitigating evidence,56 the Court has upheld state statutes that control the relative weight that the sentencer may accord to aggravating and mitigating evidence.57 The requirement of individualized sentencing is satisfied by allowing the jury to consider all relevant mitigating evidence; there is no additional requirement that the jury be allowed to weigh the severity of an aggravating circumstance in the absence of any mitigating factor.58 So, too, the legislature may specify the consequences of the jury's finding an aggravating circumstance; it may mandate that a death sentence be imposed if the jury unanimously finds at least one aggravating circumstance and no mitigating circumstance,59 or if the jury finds that aggravating circumstances outweigh mitigating circumstances.60 And a court may instruct that the jury must not be swayed by mere sentiment, conjecture, sympathy, passion, prejudice, public opinion, or public feeling, because in essence the instruction merely cautions the jury not to base its decision on factors not presented at the trial.61 However, a jury instruction that can be interpreted as requiring jury unanimity on the existence of each mitigating factor before that factor may be weighed against aggravating factors is invalid as in effect allowing one juror to veto consideration of any and all mitigating factors. Instead, each juror must be allowed to give effect to what he or she believes to be established mitigating evidence.62 Due process considerations can also come into play; if the state argues for the death penalty based on the defendant's future dangerousness, due process requires that the jury be informed if the alternative to a death sentence is a life sentence without the possibility of parole.63 What is the effect on a death sentence if an eligibility factor (a factor making the defendant eligible for the death penalty) or an aggravating factor (a factor, to be weighed against mitigating factors, in determining whether a defendant who has been found eligible for the death penalty should receive it) is found invalid? In Brown v. Sanders, the Court announced the following rule: An invalidated sentencing factor (whether an eligibility factor or not) will render the sentence unconstitutional by reason of its adding an improper element to the aggravation scale in the weighing process unless one of the other sentencing factors enables the sentencer to give aggravating weight to the same facts and circumstances.64 Appellate review under a harmless error standard can preserve a death sentence based in part on a jury's consideration of an aggravating factor later found to be invalid,65 or on a trial judge's consideration of improper aggravating circumstances.66 In each case the sentencing authority had found other aggravating circumstances justifying the imposition of capital punishment, and in Zant evidence relating to the invalid factor was nonetheless admissible on another basis.67 Even in states that require the jury to weigh statutory aggravating and mitigating circumstances (and even in the absence of written findings by the jury), the appellate court may preserve a death penalty through harmless error review or through a reweighing of the aggravating and mitigating evidence.68 By contrast, where there is a possibility that the jury's reliance on a totally irrelevant factor (defendant had served time pursuant to an invalid conviction subsequently vacated) may have been decisive in balancing aggravating and mitigating factors, a death sentence may not stand notwithstanding the presence of other aggravating factors.69 In Oregon v. Guzek, the Court could find nothing in the Eighth or Fourteenth Amendments that provides a capital defendant a right to introduce, at sentencing, new evidence, available to him at the time of trial, that shows he was not present at the scene of the crime.70 Although the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments require that the sentencer not be precluded from considering, as a mitigating factor, any aspect of a defendant's character or record and any of the circumstances of the offense that the defendant proffers as a basis for a sentence less than death, such evidence is a traditional concern of sentencing because it tends to show how, not whether, the defendant committed the crime.71 Alibi evidence, by contrast, concerns whether the defendant committed the basic crime, and thereby attacks a previously determined matter in a proceeding [i.e., sentencing] at which, in principle, that matter is not at issue.72 Focus on the character and culpability of the defendant led the Court, initially, to hold that the Eighth Amendment prohibits a capital sentencing jury from considering victim impact evidence that does not relate directly to the circumstances of the crime.73 Four years later, the Court largely overruled74 these decisions, however, holding that the Eighth Amendment does allow the jury to consider 'victim impact' evidence relating to the personal characteristics of the victim and the emotional impact of the crimes on the victim's family.75 The Court reasoned that the admissibility of victim impact evidence was necessary to restore balance to capital sentencing. In the Court's view, exclusion of such evidence unfairly weighted the scales in a capital trial because there are no corresponding limits on relevant mitigating evidence a capital defendant may introduce concerning his own circumstances.76 Related Resources
Footnotes
Can I Solve This on My Own or Do I Need an Attorney?
Get tailored advice and ask your legal questions. Many attorneys offer free consultations. If you need an attorney, find one right now. Which Supreme Court case dealt with the 8th Amendment?In Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U.S. 97 (1976), the Supreme Court established that the Eighth Amendment may be violated due to factors related to a prisoner's confinement.
What Supreme Court case ruled the death penalty?Georgia (428 U.S. 153), Jurek v. Texas (428 U.S. 262), and Proffitt v. Florida (428 U.S. 242), collectively referred to as the Gregg decision. This landmark decision held that the new death penalty statutes in Florida, Georgia, and Texas were constitutional, thus reinstating the death penalty in those states.
Which United States Supreme Court case invalidated capital punishment as a violation of the 8th Amendment?In Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238 (1972), the Court invalidated existing death penalty laws because they constituted cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment.
Which 1972 Supreme Court decision ruled that the death penalty at that time violated the Eighth Amendment's protection against cruel and unusual punishment?Furman v. Georgia 408 U.S. 238: Court ruled that the death penalty, as applied, was an arbitrary punishment and thus unconstitutional under the 8th and 14th Amendments.
|
