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Furman v. Georgia

Supreme Court of the United States · 1972 · Criminal Procedure

Criminal ProcedureConstitutional LawEighth Amendmentdeath penaltycruel and unusual punishmentarbitrarinessEighth AmendmentFourteenth Amendment

Facts

The challenged punishment in the cases was death. Justice Brennan emphasized that, in contemporary American practice, death was rarely imposed and even more rarely carried out, despite broad statutory authorization for capital punishment. He described death as uniquely severe because of its pain, finality, and enormity, and noted that juries imposed it without guiding standards, creating a substantial likelihood of arbitrary selection. In Furman’s own case, the Georgia Supreme Court accepted his account that the gun discharged while he was backing out of a burglary, yet he was convicted of murder and sentenced to death.

Issue

Whether the punishment of death, as then administered in the United States, was a cruel and unusual punishment prohibited by the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. More specifically, whether the deliberate infliction of death was consistent with the Clause’s command that the State may not inflict punishments that fail to comport with human dignity.

Rule

A punishment is cruel and unusual if it does not comport with human dignity. In determining that question, courts should consider four interrelated principles: whether the punishment is unusually severe and degrading to human dignity, whether there is a strong probability it is inflicted arbitrarily, whether it is substantially rejected by contemporary society as shown by objective indicators of actual use, and whether it is excessive because no penal purpose is served more effectively than by a significantly less severe punishment. Ordinarily the inquiry is cumulative rather than dependent on any single factor.

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One of 10 multiple-choice questions for this case. Pick an answer to see why.

Nevada authorizes a punishment called permanent isolation labor for a broad range of violent felonies. In practice, courts in Reno and Las Vegas impose it in only a handful of eligible cases each decade, juries receive no standards for choosing it, and the state offers no evidence that it deters or incapacitates better than life imprisonment.

Under the governing approach, which is the strongest argument that the punishment is cruel and unusual?

Explanation. Justice Brennan's approach is cumulative. A punishment is cruel and unusual if it is unusually severe, probably inflicted arbitrarily, substantially rejected by contemporary society as shown by actual use, and excessive because a significantly less severe punishment would serve penal purposes as well. Legislative authorization and historical pedigree do not control, and the Clause is not limited to punishments involving physical torture.