[This is an excerpt. The full post can be read on the DE Repeal website.]
Furman v. Georgia
Forty years ago this week in Furman v. Georgia, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the death penalty across the country. They said it violated the U.S. Constitution because it was applied inconsistently and was therefore cruel and unusual punishment.
When the death penalty was reinstated four years later in Gregg v. Georgia, new procedures were expected to make the nation’s most severe punishment less arbitrary and more fair. The Court also commended the new statutes as “a responsible effort to define those crimes and those criminals for which capital punishment is most probably an effective deterrent.”
Decades later, random factors such as the race of the victim, the place the crime was committed, and the quality of defense counsel continue to exert significant influence on determining whether a defendant will receive the death penalty.
The death penalty is still plagued with randomness as it was forty years ago, and it is by no means reserved for the “worst of the worst” offenders...
For more information and to sign the petition in support of repeal go to www.derepeal.org
