Opinion ID: 2974187
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Furman Principles

Text: The Supreme Court has clearly established that the Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause of the Eighth Amendment condemns “the arbitrary infliction” of the death penalty. Furman, 408 U.S. at 274 (Brennan, J., concurring). In Furman v. Georgia, the Supreme Court, in a one paragraph per curiam opinion, held that the death penalty, as then administered under statutes vesting unguided sentencing discretion in juries and trial judges, was unconstitutionally cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. Id. at 239-40. The concurring opinions that followed explained that the death penalty was being imposed so discriminatorily, id. at 240 (Douglas, J., concurring), so wantonly and freakishly, id. at 306 (Stewart, J., concurring), and so infrequently, id. at 310 (White, J., concurring), that any given death sentence was unconstitutionally cruel and unusual. Justice White concluded that “the death penalty is exacted with great infrequency even for the most atrocious crimes and that there is no meaningful basis for distinguishing the few cases in which [the death penalty] is imposed from the many cases in which it is not.” Id. at 313 (concurring). Indeed, the death sentences examined by the Supreme Court in Furman were “cruel and unusual in the same way that being struck by lightning is cruel and unusual. For, of all the people convicted of [capital crimes], many just as reprehensible as these, the petitioners [in Furman were] among a capriciously selected random handful upon whom the sentence of death ha[d] in fact been imposed.” Id. at 309-10 (Stewart, J., concurring). Thus, Furman established that the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments cannot tolerate the infliction of a sentence of death under legal systems that permit this penalty to be arbitrarily and capriciously imposed. See id. at 310; Spaziano v. Florida, 468 U.S. 447, 460 (1984) (Furman established that “[i]f a State has determined that death should be an available penalty for certain crimes, then it must administer that penalty in a way that can rationally distinguish between those individuals for whom death is an appropriate sanction and those for whom it is not.”); Godfrey v. Georgia, 446 U.S. 420, 428 (1980) (Furman established that “if a State wishes to authorize capital punishment it has a constitutional responsibility to . . . apply its law in a manner that avoids the arbitrary and capricious infliction of the death penalty.”). As it has evolved since Furman, the Eighth Amendment arbitrariness standard generally prohibits the infliction of a death sentence discriminatorily on the basis of illegitimate and suspect factors, such as the race or socioeconomic status of the defendant and the victim, and its inconsistent or random imposition. See Eddings v. Oklahoma, 455 U.S. 104, 111 (1982) (Beginning with Furman, the Court has emphasized its pursuit of the “goals of measured, consistent application and fairness to the accused.”); David C. Baldus et al., Arbitrariness and Discrimination in the No. 03-3200 Getsy v. Mitchell Page 7 Administration of the Death Penalty: A Legal and Empirical Analysis of the Nebraska Experience (1973-1999), 81 Neb. L. Rev. 486, 496 (2002). The second source of arbitrariness, inconsistent and unprincipled outcomes, constituted a major factual foundation of the Furman holding. See Baldus et al., supra, at 496 n.5. The Furman Court invalidated existing death penalty laws because, as the laws were structured and administered at the time, they failed to generate acceptably consistent outcomes. See Furman, 408 U.S. at 295 (Brennan, J., concurring) (noting that the existing procedures were not constructed to guard against the totally arbitrary selection of offenders for the punishment of death); Blystone v. Pennsylvania, 494 U.S. 299, 303 (1990) (noting that the constitutional defect identified in Furman was that “unguided juries were imposing the death penalty in an inconsistent and random manner on defendants”). Each of the concurring opinions in Furman relied upon various forms of statistical evidence that purported to demonstrate patterns of inconsistent or otherwise arbitrary sentencing. Furman, 408 U.S. at 249-52 (Douglas, J., concurring); id. at 291-95 (Brennan, J., concurring); id. at 309-10 (Stewart, J., concurring); id. at 313 (White, J., concurring); id. at 364-66 (Marshall, J., concurring). Evidence of such inconsistent results, of sentencing decisions that could not be explained on the basis of individual culpability, indicated that the system operated arbitrarily and therefore violated the Eighth Amendment. The Supreme Court has affirmed this conception of the Eighth Amendment in its decisions following Furman. Thus, the Court has insisted that “capital punishment be imposed fairly, and with reasonable consistency, or not at all.” Eddings, 455 U.S. at 112. To satisfy the concerns of Furman, the Supreme Court has thereafter required that the sentencing body’s discretion be “directed and limited” and exercised in an “informed manner” to avoid “wholly arbitrary and capricious action.” Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153, 189 (1976). Furman was read as holding that “to minimize the risk that the death penalty [will] be imposed on a capriciously selected group of offenders, the decision to impose it ha[s] to be guided by standards so that the sentencing authority [will] focus on the particularized circumstances of the crime and the defendant.” Id. at 199. The jury should be “given guidance regarding the factors about the crime and the defendant that the State, representing organized society, deems particularly relevant to the sentencing decision.” Id. at 192. “Otherwise, the system cannot function in a consistent and a rational manner.” Id. at 189. It is now well settled that “the penalty of death is different in kind from any other punishment imposed under our system of justice.” Id. at 188. “From the point of view of the defendant, it is different both in its severity and its finality. From the point of view of society, the action of the sovereign in taking the life of one of its citizens also differs dramatically from any other legitimate state action.” Gardner v. Florida, 430 U.S. 349, 357 (1977). The qualitative difference of death from all other punishments requires a correspondingly greater need for reliability, consistency, and fairness in capital sentencing decisions. See, e.g., Ford v. Wainwright, 477 U.S. 399, 411 (1986); Spaziano, 468 U.S. at 460 n.7; California v. Ramos, 463 U.S. 992, 998-99 (1983); Zant v. Stephens, 462 U.S. 862, 884-85 (1983); Woodson v. North Carolina, 428 U.S. 280, 305 (1976). It is of vital importance to the defendant and to the community that any decision to impose the death sentence be, and appear to be, based on reason rather than caprice or emotion. Gardner, 430 U.S. at 357. Accordingly, the courts must “carefully scrutinize” sentencing decisions “to minimize the risk that the penalty will be imposed in error or in an arbitrary and capricious manner. There must be a valid penological reason for choosing from among the many criminal defendants the few who are sentenced to death.” Spaziano, 468 U.S. at 460 n.7. The death-is-different principle can only be observed here by holding that the inconsistent and disproportionate sentences in the same case violate the clearly established Furman arbitrariness principle and hence the Eighth Amendment.