Opinion ID: 340682
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Furman

Text: 9 In the three cases consolidated under the name of Furman, supra, the court issued a terse per curiam announcement, accompanied by five individual, quite disparate concurrences, to the effect that capital punishment as imposed under statutes that provided complete discretion to the sentencing authority constituted cruel and unusual punishment. 2 Justices Brennan and Marshall concluded that the death penalty could never be constitutionally imposed. See Furman, supra, 92 S.Ct. at 2736 (Brennan, J., concurring); id. at 2765 (Marshall, J., concurring). Justices Douglas, Stewart, and White concurred on the more narrow ground that the arbitrariness, if not discrimination, that they perceived in the operation of the discretionary capital punishment systems before the Court violated eighth amendment strictures. See Furman, supra, 92 S.Ct. at 2727 (Douglas, J., concurring); id. at 2760 (Stewart, J., concurring); id. at 2763 (White, J., concurring).