Go to next caseThree cases were brought to the Supreme Court concerning the death penalty and the racial biases present in the selection process. Three juries had convicted and imposed the death penalty on their accused without any guidelines to go by in their decision. This case represents the first time the Supreme Court ruled against the death penalty. The dissenting Justices argued that the courts had no right to challenge legislative judgement on the effectiveness and justice of punishments. The majority however held that the death penalty was cruel and unusual punishment, which violated the Eigth Amendment. Justice Thurgood Marshall went on to attack the penalty more directly stating, "it is excessive, unneccessary, and offensive to contemporary values." The actual decision created three options for use of the death penalty: mandatory death sentence for certain crimes, development of standardized guidelines for juries and outright abolition. Later in Gregg v. Georgia the Court favored the creation of guidelines for juries.
* The content on this page and the pages to which it is linked are based on the information from Anatomy of a Murder: A Trip Through Our Nation's Legal Justice System.
