the supreme court reinstated the death penalty in gregg v. georgia.
the supreme court reinstated the death penalty in gregg v. georgia.
in which case did the supreme court reinstate the death penalty?
gregg v. georgia
the movement in 1950s and 1960s shifted focus from legislation to the courts. although public opinion remained in favor of execution (aside from during the mid-1960s when pro and anti opinions were roughly equal), judges and jurors executed fewer people than they did in the 1930s. the decline in executions gave strength to various new anti-capital punishment organizations. among these groups were: a california-based citizens against legalized murder, the ohio committee to abolish capital punishment, the new jersey council to abolish capital punishment, california's people against capital punishment, the new york committee to abolish capital punishment, the oregon council to abolish the death penalty, and the national committee to abolish the federal death penalty. in addition to growing organizations, the movement also profited from growing european abolishment of the death penalty and from the controversial executions of barbara graham and caryl chessman. success mounted in the late 1950s as alaska, hawaii, and delaware abolished capital punishment. oregon and iowa followed their leads in the 1960s. many other states added laws that restricted the use of the death penalty except in cases of extreme serious offenses. abolitionists began to strongly challenge the constitutionality of the death penalty in the 1960s. lawyers from the american civil liberties union and from the naacp legal defense and educational fund launched a major campaign challenging the death penalty's constitutionality and insisted a moratorium for all executions while it was in process. the united states executed zero people from 1968 to 1976. the anti-death penalty movement's biggest victory of this time period was the supreme court case, "furman v. georgia", of 1972. the supreme court found the current state of the death penalty unconstitutional due to its "arbitrary and discriminatory manner" of application. the court, however, left states with the option to revamp their laws and make them more constitutional. twenty eight states did just that and the court eventually allowed the death penalty again through a series of cases in 1976, collectively known as "gregg v. georgia".
capital punishment debate in the united states
on june 25, 2008, the supreme court, splitting 5–4, held that "the eighth amendment bars louisiana from imposing the death penalty for the rape of a child where the crime did not result, and was not intended to result, in the victim's death." in its majority opinion authored by justice kennedy, the court explained that the application of the death penalty had to rest on national consensus, and that as only six states permitted the death penalty for child rape, no such consensus existed. "unlike louisiana, those states all require that a defendant have a previous rape conviction or some other aggravating factor in order to be subject to the death penalty, and no one has yet been sentenced to death under any of the laws." in formulating the idea of "national consensus" the court relied on the previous cases "roper v. simmons" (2005), which outlawed the execution of minors, and "coker v. georgia" (1977), which outlawed the application of the death penalty for the crime of rape. according to the court, "[t]he death penalty is not a proportional punishment for the rape of a child." the opinion, which was joined by the court's four more liberal judges, went on to state, "the court concludes that there is a distinction between intentional first–degree murder, on the one hand, and non–homicide crimes against individuals, even including child rape, on the other. the latter crimes may be devastating in their harm, as here, but in terms of moral depravity and of the injury to the person and to the public, they cannot compare to murder in their severity and irrevocability." the opinion concluded that in cases of crimes against individuals, "the death penalty should not be expanded to instances where the victim’s life was not taken."
kennedy v. louisiana