Furman v. Georgia

Furman v. Georgia
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued January 17, 1972 Decided June 29, 1972
Full case name	William Henry Furman v. State of Georgia
Citations	408 U.S. 238 (more) 92 S. Ct. 2726; 33 L. Ed. 2d 346; 1972 U.S. LEXIS 169
Case history
Prior	Cert. granted, 403 U.S. 952.
Subsequent	Rehearing denied, 409 U.S. 902.
Holding
The arbitrary and inconsistent imposition of the death penalty violates the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments, and constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.
Court membership
Chief Justice Warren E. Burger Associate Justices William O. Douglas · William J. Brennan Jr. Potter Stewart · Byron White Thurgood Marshall · Harry Blackmun Lewis F. Powell Jr. · William Rehnquist
Case opinions
Per curiam
Concurrence	Douglas
Concurrence	Brennan
Concurrence	Stewart
Concurrence	White
Concurrence	Marshall
Dissent	Burger, joined by Blackmun, Powell, Rehnquist
Dissent	Blackmun
Dissent	Powell, joined by Burger, Blackmun, Rehnquist
Dissent	Rehnquist, joined by Burger, Blackmun, Powell
Laws applied
U.S. Const. amends. VIII, XIV
Abrogated by
Gregg v. Georgia (1976)

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Furman v. Georgia

Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238 (1972), was a landmark criminal case in which the United States Supreme Court invalidated all then existing legal constructions for the death penalty in the United States. It was a 5–4 decision, with each member of the majority writing a separate opinion.^{[1]: 467–68} Following Furman, in order to reinstate the death penalty, states had to at least remove arbitrary and discriminatory effects in order to satisfy the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.^[1]: 468

The decision mandated a degree of consistency in the application of the death penalty. This case resulted in a de facto moratorium of capital punishment throughout the United States, which ended when the case Gregg v. Georgia was decided in 1976 to allow the death penalty.^[2][3]

The Supreme Court consolidated the cases Jackson v. Georgia and Branch v. Texas with the Furman decision, thereby invalidating the death penalty for rape; this ruling was confirmed post-Gregg in Coker v. Georgia. The Court had also intended to include the case of Aikens v. California, but between the time Aikens had been heard in oral argument and a decision was to be issued, the Supreme Court of California decided in California v. Anderson that the death penalty violated the state constitution; Aikens was therefore dismissed as moot, since this decision reduced all death sentences in California to life imprisonment.^[4]