Summary
The Supreme Court considered whether the death penalty for murder violates the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. The Court held that capital punishment is not unconstitutional per se and examined whether Georgia’s revised capital sentencing procedures sufficiently guided jury discretion and provided meaningful appellate review.
Topics
Practice areas
Questions Presented
- Whether the death penalty for murder is categorically prohibited as cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments.
- Whether Georgia's post-Furman capital-sentencing scheme sufficiently guided and limited sentencing discretion to prevent arbitrary and capricious imposition of death sentences.
- Whether Georgia's statutory aggravating circumstances, bifurcated sentencing procedure, and mandatory appellate proportionality review adequately satisfied the constitutional requirements identified in Furman v. Georgia.
- Whether Gregg's murder death sentences were excessive or disproportionate under Georgia's capital-sentencing system.
Holdings
- The death penalty is not invariably unconstitutional under the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments and may be imposed for murder in appropriate circumstances.
- Where discretion is given to a sentencing authority to determine whether a person will live or die, that discretion must be suitably directed and limited to minimize the risk of wholly arbitrary and capricious action.
- Georgia's revised capital-sentencing scheme, requiring a statutory aggravating circumstance, permitting consideration of aggravating and mitigating evidence, and providing automatic appellate review for arbitrariness, evidentiary support, and proportionality, does not violate the Constitution on its face or as applied in Gregg's murder case.
Key quotations
“We now hold that the punishment of death does not invariably violate the Constitution.” (428 U.S. 169)
“It is an extreme sanction, suitable to the most extreme of crimes.” (428 U.S. 187)
“Furman mandates that where discretion is afforded a sentencing body on a matter so grave as the determination of whether a human life should be taken or spared, that discretion must be suitably directed and limited so as to minimize the risk of wholly arbitrary and capricious action.” (428 U.S. 189)
“For the reasons expressed in this opinion, we hold that the statutory system under which Gregg was sentenced to death does not violate the Constitution.” (428 U.S. 207)
Factual background
Gregg and Floyd Allen were hitchhiking when Fred Simmons and Bob Moore picked them up in Florida. After the group traveled north, Gregg shot and killed Simmons and Moore, robbed them, and took their automobile; the evidence included the murder weapon, Gregg's statements, and Allen's account of the killings. Gregg claimed self-defense, but a Georgia jury convicted him of two murders and two armed robberies and imposed death sentences for all four offenses.
Procedural history
Gregg was convicted in Georgia of two murders and two armed robberies and received death sentences on all four counts. The Supreme Court of Georgia affirmed the murder death sentences but vacated the robbery death sentences as excessive or disproportionate under Georgia's statutory review process. The United States Supreme Court affirmed the judgment sustaining the murder death sentences.