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Amdt8.2.2.2.3.1 Gregg v. Georgia and Limits on the Death Penalty: Overview

Eighth Amendment:

Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

Because only two of the Justices in Furman thought the death penalty to be invalid in all circumstances, those who wished to reinstate the penalty concentrated upon drafting statutes that would correct the faults identified in the other three majority opinions.1 Enactment of death penalty statutes by 35 states following Furman led to renewed litigation, but not to the elucidation one might expect from a series of opinions.2 Instead, although the Court seemed firmly on the path to the conclusion that only criminal acts that result in the deliberate taking of human life may be punished by the state’s taking of human life,3 it chose several different paths in attempting to delineate the acceptable procedural devices that must be instituted in order that death may be constitutionally pronounced and carried out. To summarize, the Court determined that the penalty of death for deliberate murder is not per se cruel and unusual, but that mandatory death statutes leaving the jury or trial judge no discretion to consider the individual defendant and his crime are cruel and unusual, and that standards and procedures may be established for the imposition of death that would remove or mitigate the arbitrariness and irrationality found so significant in Furman.4 Divisions among the Justices, however, made it difficult to ascertain the form that permissible statutory schemes may take.5

Because the three Justices in the majority in Furman who did not altogether reject the death penalty thought the problems with the system revolved about discriminatory and arbitrary imposition,6 legislatures turned to enactment of statutes that purported to do away with these difficulties. One approach was to provide for automatic imposition of the death penalty upon conviction for certain forms of murder. More commonly, states established special procedures to follow in capital cases, and specified aggravating and mitigating factors that the sentencing authority must consider in imposing sentence. In five cases in 1976, the Court rejected automatic sentencing, but approved other statutes specifying factors for jury consideration.7

First, the Court concluded that the death penalty as a punishment for murder does not itself constitute cruel and unusual punishment. Although there were differences of degree among the seven Justices in the majority on this point, they all seemed to concur that reenactment of capital punishment statutes by 35 states precluded the Court from concluding that this form of penalty was no longer acceptable to a majority of the American people. Rather, they concluded, a large proportion of American society continued to regard it as an appropriate and necessary criminal sanction. Neither is it possible, the Court continued, to rule that the death penalty does not comport with the basic concept of human dignity at the core of the Eighth Amendment. Courts are not free to substitute their own judgments for the people and their elected representatives. A death penalty statute, just as all other statutes, comes before the courts bearing a presumption of validity that can be overcome only upon a strong showing by those who attack its constitutionality. Whether in fact the death penalty validly serves the permissible functions of retribution and deterrence, the judgments of the state legislatures are that it does, and those judgments are entitled to deference. Therefore, the infliction of death as a punishment for murder is not without justification and is not unconstitutionally severe. Nor is the punishment of death disproportionate to the crime being punished, murder.8

Second, however, a different majority concluded that statutes mandating the imposition of death for crimes classified as first-degree murder violate the Eighth Amendment. A review of history, traditional usage, legislative enactments, and jury determinations led the plurality to conclude that mandatory death sentences had been rejected by contemporary standards. Moreover, mandatory sentencing precludes the individualized consideration of the character and record of the . . . offender and the circumstances of the particular offense that the fundamental respect for humanity underlying the Eighth Amendment requires in capital cases.9

A third principle established by the 1976 cases was that the procedure by which a death sentence is imposed must be structured so as to reduce arbitrariness and capriciousness as much as possible.10 What emerged from the prevailing plurality opinion in these cases are requirements (1) that the sentencing authority, jury or judge,11 be given standards to govern its exercise of discretion and be given the opportunity to evaluate both the circumstances of the offense and the character and propensities of the accused;12 (2) that to prevent jury prejudice on the issue of guilt there be a separate proceeding after conviction at which evidence relevant to the sentence, mitigating and aggravating, be presented;13 (3) that special forms of appellate review be provided not only of the conviction but also of the sentence, to ascertain that the sentence was fairly imposed both in light of the facts of the individual case and by comparison with the penalties imposed in similar cases.14 The Court later ruled, however, that proportionality review is not constitutionally required.15 Gregg, Proffitt, and Jurek did not require such comparative proportionality review, the Court noted, but merely suggested that proportionality review is one means by which a state may safeguard against arbitrarily imposed death sentences.16

Limitations on Capital Punishment: Equality of Application

One of the principal objections to imposition of the death penalty, voiced by Justice Douglas in his concurring opinion in Furman, was that it was not being administered fairly—that the capital sentencing laws vesting practically untrammeled discretion in juries were being used as vehicles for racial discrimination, and that discrimination is an ingredient not compatible with the idea of equal protection of the laws that is implicit in the ban on ‘cruel and unusual’ punishments.17 This argument has not carried the day. Although the Court has acknowledged the possibility that the death penalty may be administered in a racially discriminatory manner, it has made proof of such discrimination quite difficult.

A measure of protection against jury bias was provided by the Court’s holding that a capital defendant accused of an interracial crime is entitled to have prospective jurors informed of the race of the victim and questioned on the issue of racial bias.18

Proof of prosecution bias is another matter. The Court ruled in McCleskey v. Kemp19 that a strong statistical showing of racial disparity in capital sentencing cases is insufficient to establish an Eighth Amendment violation. Statistics alone do not establish racial discrimination in any particular case, the Court concluded, but at most show only a likelihood that a particular factor entered into some decisions.20 Just as important to the outcome, however, was the Court’s application of the two overarching principles of prior capital punishment cases: that a state’s system must narrow a sentencer’s discretion to impose the death penalty (e.g., by carefully defining aggravating circumstances), but must not constrain a sentencer’s discretion to consider mitigating factors relating to the character of the defendant. Although the dissenters saw the need to narrow discretion in order to reduce the chance that racial discrimination underlies jury decisions to impose the death penalty,21 the majority emphasized the need to preserve jury discretion not to impose capital punishment. Reliance on statistics to establish a prima facie case of discrimination, the Court feared, could undermine the requirement that capital sentencing jurors focus their collective judgment on the unique characteristics of a particular criminal defendant—a focus that can result in final and unreviewable leniency.22

Footnotes

  1.  Jump to essay-1Collectors of judicial put downs of colleagues should note Justice Rehnquist’s characterization of the many expressions of faults in the system and their correction as glossolalial. Woodson v. North Carolina, 428 U.S. 280, 317 (1976) (dissenting).
  2.  Jump to essay-2Justice Frankfurter once wrote of the development of the law through the process of litigating elucidation. International Ass’n of Machinists v. Gonzales, 356 U.S. 617, 619 (1958). The Justices are firm in declaring that the series of death penalty cases failed to conform to this concept. See, e.g., Chief Justice Burger, Lockett v. Ohio, 438 U.S. 586, 602 (1978) (plurality opinion) (The signals from this Court have not . . . always been easy to decipher); Justice White, id. at 622 (The Court has now completed its about-face since Furman) (concurring in result); and Justice Rehnquist, id. at 629 (dissenting) (the Court has gone from pillar to post, with the result that the sort of reasonable predictability upon which legislatures, trial courts, and appellate courts must of necessity rely has been all but completely sacrificed), and id. at 632 (I am frank to say that I am uncertain whether today’s opinion represents the seminal case in the exposition by this Court of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments as they apply to capital punishment, or whether instead it represents the third false start in this direction within the past six years).
  3.  Jump to essay-3On crimes not involving the taking of life or the actual commission of the killing by a defendant, see Coker v. Georgia, 433 U.S. 584 (1977) (rape of an adult woman); Kennedy v. Louisiana, 128 S. Ct. 2461 (2008) (rape of an eight-year-old child); Enmund v. Florida, 458 U.S. 782 (1982) (felony murder where defendant aided and abetted a robbery during which a murder was committed but did not himself kill, attempt to kill, or intend that a killing would take place). Compare Enmund with Tison v. Arizona, 481 U.S. 137 (1987) (death sentence upheld where defendants did not kill but their involvement in the events leading up to the murders was active, recklessly indifferent, and substantial). Those cases in which a large threat, though uneventuated, to the lives of many may have been present, as in airplane hijackings, may constitute an exception to the Court’s narrowing of the crimes for which capital punishment may be imposed. The federal hijacking statute, 49 U.S.C. § 46502, imposes the death penalty only when a death occurs during commission of the hijacking. By contrast, the treason statute, 18 U.S.C. § 2381, permits the death penalty in the absence of a death, and represents a situation in which great and fatal danger might be present. But the treason statute also constitutes a crime against the state, which may be significant. In Kennedy v. Louisiana, 128 S. Ct. 2641, 2659 (2008), in overturning a death sentence imposed for the rape of a child, the Court wrote, Our concern here is limited to crimes against individual persons. We do not address, for example, crimes defining and punishing treason, espionage, terrorism, and drug kingpin activity, which are offenses against the State.
  4.  Jump to essay-4Justices Brennan and Marshall adhered to the view that the death penalty is per se unconstitutional. E.g., Coker v. Georgia, 433 U.S. 584, 600 (1977); Lockett v. Ohio, 438 U.S. 586, 619 (1978); Enmund v. Florida, 458 U.S. 782, 801 (1982).
  5.  Jump to essay-5A comprehensive evaluation of the multiple approaches followed in Furman-era cases may be found in Radin, The Jurisprudence of Death: Evolving Standards for the Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause, 126 U. Pa. L. Rev. 989 (1978).
  6.  Jump to essay-6Thus, Justice Douglas thought the penalty had been applied discriminatorily, Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238 (1972), Justice Stewart thought it wantonly and . . . freakishly imposed, id. at 310, and Justice White thought it had been applied so infrequently that it served no justifying end. Id. at 313.
  7.  Jump to essay-7The principal opinion was in Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153 (1976) (upholding statute providing for a bifurcated proceeding separating the guilt and sentencing phases, requiring the jury to find at least one of ten statutory aggravating factors before imposing death, and providing for review of death sentences by the Georgia Supreme Court). Statutes of two other states were similarly sustained, Proffitt v. Florida, 428 U.S. 242 (1976) (statute generally similar to Georgia’s, with the exception that the trial judge, rather than jury, was directed to weigh statutory aggravating factors against statutory mitigating factors), and Jurek v. Texas, 428 U.S. 262 (1976) (statute construed as narrowing death-eligible class, and lumping mitigating factors into consideration of future dangerousness), while those of two other states were invalidated, Woodson v. North Carolina, 428 U.S. 280 (1976), and Roberts v. Louisiana, 428 U.S. 325 (1976) (both mandating death penalty for first-degree murder).
  8.  Jump to essay-8Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153, 168–87 (1976) (Justices Stewart, Powell, and Stevens); Roberts v. Louisiana, 428 U.S. 325, 350–56 (1976) (Justices White, Blackmun, Rehnquist, and Chief Justice Burger). The views summarized in the text are those in the Stewart opinion in Gregg. Justice White’s opinion basically agrees with this opinion in concluding that contemporary community sentiment accepts capital punishment, but did not endorse the proportionality analysis. Justice White’s Furman dissent and those of Chief Justice Burger and Justice Blackmun show a rejection of proportionality analysis. Justices Brennan and Marshall dissented, reiterating their Furman views. Gregg, 428 U.S. at 227, 231.
  9.  Jump to essay-9Woodson v. North Carolina, 428 U.S. 280 (1976); Roberts v. Louisiana, 428 U.S. 325 (1976). Justices Stewart, Powell, and Stevens composed the plurality, and Justices Brennan and Marshall concurred on the basis of their own views of the death penalty. Id. at 305, 306, 336.
  10.  Jump to essay-10Here adopted is the constitutional analysis of the Stewart plurality of three. [T]he holding of the Court may be viewed as the position taken by those Members who concurred in the judgments on the narrowest grounds, Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153, 169 n.15 (1976), a comment directed to the Furman opinions but equally applicable to these cases and to Lockett. See Marks v. United States, 430 U.S. 188, 192–94 (1977).
  11.  Jump to essay-11The Stewart plurality noted its belief that jury sentencing in capital cases performs an important social function in maintaining the link between contemporary community values and the penal system, but agreed that sentencing may constitutionally be vested in the trial judge. Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153, 190 (1976). Subsequently, however, the Court issued several opinions holding that the Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial is violated if a judge makes factual findings (e.g., as to the existence of aggravating circumstances) upon which a death sentence is based. Hurst v. Florida, 136 S. Ct. 616, 619–20 (2016); Ring v. Arizona, 536 U.S. 584 (2002). Notably, one Justice in both cases would have found that the Eighth Amendment—not the Sixth Amendment—requires that a jury, not a judge, make the decision to sentence a defendant to death. Ring, 536 U.S. at 614 (Breyer, J., concurring in the judgment). See also Hurst, 136 S. Ct. at 619 (Breyer, J., concurring in the judgment).
  12.  Jump to essay-12Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153, 188–95 (1976). Justice White seemed close to the plurality on the question of standards, id. at 207 (concurring), but while Chief Justice Burger and Justice Rehnquist joined the White opinion agreeing that the system under review comports with Furman, Justice Rehnquist denied the constitutional requirement of standards in any event. Woodson v. North Carolina, 428 U.S. 280, 319–21 (1976) (dissenting). In McGautha v. California, 402 U.S. 183, 207–08 (1971), the Court had rejected the argument that the absence of standards violated the Due Process Clause. On the vitiation of McGautha, see Gregg, 428 U.S. at 195 n.47, and Lockett v. Ohio, 438 U.S. 586, 598–99 (1978). In assessing the character and record of the defendant, the jury may be required to make a judgment about the possibility of future dangerousness of the defendant, from psychiatric and other evidence. Jurek v. Texas, 428 U.S. 262, 275–76 (1976). Moreover, testimony of psychiatrists need not be based on examination of the defendant; general responses to hypothetical questions may also be admitted. Barefoot v. Estelle, 463 U.S. 880 (1983). But cf. Estelle v. Smith, 451 U.S. 454 (1981) (holding Self-incrimination and Counsel Clauses applicable to psychiatric examination, at least when a doctor testifies about his conclusions with respect to future dangerousness).
  13.  Jump to essay-13Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153, 163, 190–92, 195 (1976) (plurality opinion). McGautha v. California, 402 U.S. 183 (1971), had rejected a due process requirement of bifurcated trials, and the Gregg plurality did not expressly require it under the Eighth Amendment. But the plurality’s emphasis upon avoidance of arbitrary and capricious sentencing by juries seems to look inevitably toward bifurcation. The dissenters in Roberts v. Louisiana, 428 U.S. 325, 358 (1976), rejected bifurcation and viewed the plurality as requiring it. All states with post-Furman capital sentencing statutes took the cue by adopting bifurcated capital sentencing procedures, and the Court has not been faced with the issue again. See Raymond J. Pascucci, et al., Special Project, Capital Punishment in 1984: Abandoning the Pursuit of Fairness and Consistency, 69 Cornell L. Rev. 1129, 1224–25 (1984).
  14.  Jump to essay-14Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153, 195, 198 (1976) (plurality); Proffitt v. Florida, 428 U.S. 242, 250–51, 253 (1976) (plurality); Jurek v. Texas, 428 U.S. 262, 276 (1976) (plurality).
  15.  Jump to essay-15Pulley v. Harris, 465 U.S. 37 (1984).
  16.  Jump to essay-16465 U.S. at 50.
  17.  Jump to essay-17408 U.S. at 248, 257.
  18.  Jump to essay-18Turner v. Murray, 476 U.S. 28, 36–37 (1986).
  19.  Jump to essay-19481 U.S. 279 (1987) (5-to-4 decision).
  20.  Jump to essay-20481 U.S. at 308.
  21.  Jump to essay-21481 U.S. at 339–40 (Brennan), 345 (Blackmun), 366 (Stevens).
  22.  Jump to essay-22481 U.S. at 311. Concern for protecting the fundamental role of discretion in our criminal justice system also underlay the Court’s rejection of an equal protection challenge in McCleskey. See discussion of Capital Punishment under the Fourteenth Amendment, infra. See also United States v. Bass, 536 U.S. 862 (2002) (per curiam), requiring a threshold evidentiary showing before a defendant claiming selective prosecution on the basis of race is entitled to a discovery order that the government provide information on its decisions to seek the death penalty.
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