8th Amendment: Capital Punishment

Furman v Georgia

Temporarily outlawed capital punishment because it was too arbitrary; states rewrote requirements to make less arbitrary.

Gregg v Georgia

Revives death penalty. Rejects laws that automatically impose death penalty for certain crimes. Approval capital trial in two parts:

1. guilt phase

2. sentencing phase

Implications: two judgments

1. eligibility 

2. selection

Death penalty eligibility

Jury must decide if D qualifies because crime was accompanied by at least one aggravating factor:

ex: accompanied by rape/torture/kidnapping, specific type of victim, with a bomb, etc

Maynard v Cartwright

General aggravators for death penalty eligibility can be too vague

Ex: Oklahoma ~ for murder that’s especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel

Arave v Creech

Some general aggravators not too vague

Ex: Idaho ~ murder, reflective of acts that exhibit highest, utmost, callous disregard for human life, i.e., cold-blooded pitiless slayer

Penry v Lynaugh

Death sentence can’t be automatic; jury needs to decide this particular D should be put to death

Lockett v Ohio

At selection stage of sentencing, mitigating evidence about crime, D’s background, and character must be admitted at D’s request (to be used as reasons to not give death penalty).

Note: can’t argue that death penalty is bad in general because it doesn’t deter crime

Ford v Wainwright; Atkins v Virginia; Roper v Simmons

Some classes of people cannot be executed: insane, mentally disabled, people who were under 18 at time of crime

Coker v Georgia 

Death penalty for rape is disporportionate

Kennedy v Louisiana

for crimes against individuals, death penalty should not be used when a life isn’t taken

Enmund v Florida

No death penalty for driver of getaway car for a robbery where murders were committed

Tison v Arizona

death penalty can be used when D had “major participation” in a felony that led to killing and showed “reckless indifference to human life.”

Glossip v Gross

Court upheld use of lethal injection; won’t hear complaints unless P can give better alternatives

Better alternatives don’t exist because anti-death penalty protests of more painless chemicals means they don’t get produced

Simmons v South Carolina

If at trial P brings up possibility of future danger as a reason for death penalty, D must have an opportunity to respond that parole is impossible for life sentence

Payne v Tennessee

THIS case finds victim impact statements unconstitutional BUT public outcry and then reversed

Note: victim impact statements allowed; victim opinions on whether they think death penalty is appropriate is not allowed