Discuss the Supreme Court's involvement in concerns over the death penalty, particularly with regards to relevant case law.

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

The constitutionality of the death penalty has been a concern of the nations' courts. In 1972, the case of Furman v. Georgia took up the issue of whether the death penalty constitutes cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment. The Supreme Court did not completely rule out the use of capital punishment but rather objected to the arbitrary and capricious nature in which it was imposed. Then in July 1976, the court ruled on the constitutionality of five state death penalty statutes, including Gregg v. Georgia, that found that at least one aggravating circumstance out of a total of 10 needs to be found by a jury for a death penalty finding. Since then, the Court has limited the scope and use of the death penalty. One such case, Ring v. Arizona, found that juries, not judges, must make the critical findings that send convicted killers to death row. Other limitations the Court has placed on the death penalty include that it is not permissible to use it to punish rapists, even those who rape children (Coker v. Georgia and Kennedy v. Louisiana). In addition, the mentally ill may not be executed (Ford v. Wainwright), and in 2005, the Court set a limit that those youth who were not 18 at the time of their offense could not be sentenced to death (Roper v. Simmons).