Court Opinion

ID: 9544793
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 17:01:49.60127+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:13:40.348198
License: Public Domain

RODNEY M. GUTHRIE, Justice,
Retired, specially concurring.
I concur with the opinion but am unable to resist some comment.
Although it appears to the writer to be open and obvious that there is no way of enhancing a death penalty, because it has been asserted with some apparent sincerity, I cannot resist repeating the words of Justice Brennan appearing in his concurrence in the case of Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238, 92 S.Ct. 2726, 2751, 33 L.Ed.2d 346 (1972):
“The only explanation for the uniqueness of death is its extreme severity. Death is today an unusually severe punishment, unusual in its pain, in its finality, and in its enormity. No other existing punishment is comparable to death in terms of physical and mental suffering. * * * ”