Opinion ID: 564919
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Death Penalty Prior to Furman v. Georgia

Text: 45 The Supreme Court's treatment of the relationship between sentencing discretion, the death penalty, and the Eighth Amendment has resulted in an almost perfect jurisprudential circle. 40 Prior to Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238, 92 S.Ct. 2726, 33 L.Ed.2d 346 (1972), many states authorized the death penalty for any defendant found guilty of what we reluctantly refer to as simple murder. The death penalty was not mandatory; the jury or other sentencing authority had unlimited discretion to grant the defendant mercy and impose life imprisonment rather than the death penalty. The Supreme Court unequivocally denounced such discretion in Furman, concluding that unguided sentencing led to the discriminatory, arbitrary, and capricious imposition of the death penalty in violation of the Eighth Amendment. In short, the Court found no merit in discretion. 46 At least thirty states enacted new death penalty statutes in response to Furman 's concern for unguided discretion. One group of states interpreted Furman to require the removal of all discretion in the capital sentencing context. These states passed laws that mandated the death penalty for certain statutorily defined crimes. The other group of states opted to provide guided discretion in the sentencing process by listing certain statutorily defined aggravating and mitigating circumstances. These latter states undertook to confine the sentencing body's discretion within the statutory factors. 47 The Supreme Court reviewed these two distinct types of statutes during the same term in 1976 and struck down mandatory death penalty statutes, 41 but upheld statutes that provided for discretion. 42 Limited discretion, according to the Court, was both consistent with, and necessary to, the constitutional requirement of an individualized evaluation of the death penalty's appropriateness. So began the arc back toward discretion. The Furman Court announced a retreat from discretion in capital sentencing; in Woodson, Roberts, Gregg, Proffitt and Jurek, that retreat arched backward toward a constitutional appreciation of discretion. 48 In Lockett v. Ohio, 438 U.S. 586, 98 S.Ct. 2954, 57 L.Ed.2d 973 (1978), the Court did not merely tolerate discretion, but mandated it! Death penalty statutes following Furman had apparently confined the exercise of discretion at both ends. These statutes generally required the sentencing authority to consider certain statutorily specified aggravating circumstances and statutorily specified mitigating circumstances found to accompany the murder. The trial court in Lockett had apparently concluded that to allow consideration of claimed mitigating circumstances not in the statute would authorize the type of unbridled discretion condemned in Furman. The Supreme Court held, however, that the Constitution requires states to afford the sentencing authority the discretion to consider any circumstances claimed to be mitigating, whether encompassed in the statute or not. Thus, the Court constitutionally imposed unbridled discretion in the grant of mercy. It appeared, however, that the Court may have left the consideration of aggravating circumstances to those prescribed in the various state statutes. 49 The Court then dropped the other shoe. In Barclay v. Florida, 463 U.S. 939, 103 S.Ct. 3418, 77 L.Ed.2d 1134 (1983) and Zant v. Stephens, 462 U.S. 862, 103 S.Ct. 2733, 77 L.Ed.2d 235 (1983), the Court revealed its appreciation of the fact that a defendant is guilty of a murder for which the death penalty could be imposed where it is found that the murder was accompanied by one or more of the statutory aggravating circumstances. Thus, the capital crime is not murder; it may be called aggravated murder or capital murder. Once convicted of such a crime, not only can unlimited mitigating circumstances as per Lockett be shown, but the state can prove facts in aggravation of the capital crime, whether listed as statutory aggravating circumstances or not. 50