...Furman v. Georgia Death Penalty Furman v. Georgia Death Penalty University of Phoenix Cultural Diversity in Criminal Justice University of Phoenix Cultural Diversity in Criminal Justice The Furman v. Georgia case states that the United States Supreme Court rules that capital punishment was not constitutional. There were five justices that had come together in this ruling and together they thought that capital punishment was to be banned in the United States. On August 11th, 1967 Micke William Jr. woke up when he heard noises in his house. When he got up he went to see where the noises were coming from and he ended up finding Henry Furman in his kitchen. Furman, an uneducated African American, broke into the kitchen with a gun (Smith 2008). When Furman realized that he had been spotted by Micke he ran for it while he fired a shot at Micke. The shot that was fired got Micke in the chest and it killed him instantly. His family immediately called the police. When the police reported to the scene they searched the house and the neighborhood. They ended up finding Furman in the neighborhood with the murder weapon where he was arrested and charged with the murder of Micke William Jr. The court ordered that Furman have a psychological exam done before the trial is held. The results came back from the psychological exam stating that Furman is psychotic and mentally ill. Murder cases can usually last a good while and they can become complicated cases. The trial for Furman...
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...Decision The case Kansas vs. Carr raises many questions about the death penalty, especially in relation to the Eighth Amendment. One of the main questions in this case has to do with jury instructions in the penalty stage of the trial. (Kansas v. Carr) The district judge in this phase of the trial failed to adequately instruct the jury on the correct standard of review for mitigating evidence. Unlike other types of evidence in any criminal proceedings, mitigating evidence need not be proven beyond a reasonable doubt, nor does the jury need to be unanimous on the validity of mitigating evidence. Did the district judge violate the Eighth Amendment when he failed to explicitly explain this to the jury? Upon review, the Kansas Supreme Court ruled that yes, he did. By failing to “affirmatively instruct” (Kansas v. Carr) the jury on the proper standard of...
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... In 1971 William Furman appealed the ruling he received when he accidently killed someone while committing a crime. Furman, a black male, while robbing a house was caught by someone in the house. When Furman tried to leave he tripped and the loaded firearm he was carrying went off killing one individual in the house. Furman went to trial and was found guilty of murder and sentenced to the death penalty. Furman appealed and took the ruling to the Supreme Court. Furman’s case was combined with two other black males when it went to the Supreme Court. The other two black males were given the death penalty for being found guilty of rape. At the time, the death penalty was sentenced more heavily on black individuals rather than whites. This lead to the belief that blacks were being treated unfairly. The decision was given five votes to overrule the previous ruling, with four votes that were aimed to keep the previous ruling. The five judges that were for overturning the decision also were divided on why they were against it. Two of the five stated that the death penalty in itself was cruel and unusual. The ruling from Furman V. Georgia set a precedent for how administrating the death penalty could take place. Even though the Supreme Court ruled against the death penalty in certain cases many states tried to re-write their death penalty laws to bypass the court’s ruling. In 2008, a similar case was presented to the Supreme Court. Kennedy v. Louisiana was a case in which Kennedy was...
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...The Use of Human Dignity in Death Penalty Cases: An International perspective An examination of cases from several jurisdictions that address the legality of the death penalty reveals various uses of the notion of human dignity. In 1972, in Furman v. Georgia, the United States Supreme Court declared all existing death penalty statutes at the time unconstitutional as a violation of the Eighth Amendment prohibiting "cruel and unusual punishment". There was no majority opinion, and each of the five majority members wrote a separate opinion. While three of them based their decision on the arbitrary and discriminatory application of the death penalty in the U.S., Justices Brennan and Marshall based their opinions on the per-se unconstitutionality of capital punishment. Justice Brennan argued that although human dignity is not explicitly guaranteed by the United States Constitution, it is the fundamental concept underlying the Eighth Amendment. In his opinion: "The State, even as it punishes, must treat its members with respect for their intrinsic worth as human beings. A punishment is "cruel and unusual, therefore, "if it does not comport with human dignity". He declared that the severity of capital punishment is degrading to the dignity of a man, and since even the vilest criminals share an inherent dignity, the punishment is unconstitutional. Though in Brennan words human dignity functions as a justification for the Eight Amendment, they seem to illustrate the psychological approach...
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...the crime. Since 1973, hundreds of innocent people have been released from death row, after the evidence that sentenced them to death was found to be inaccurate. Many of these innocent people were victims of wrongful convictions based on confused witnesses, mistakes by lawyers and inaccurate forensics, while the person actually responsible for the crime was still free. Cases involving DNA evidence in court, such as Ray Krone's case, can be denied access even if life and death are on the ropes. Found guilty, Krone was sentenced to death for rape and murder in Arizona, even though DNA found on the victim did not correlate with his. Arizona argued that no submission of DNA evidence could interfere with the jury decision. A decade later, without a court order, a crime lab worker identified the person who actually committed the crime through DNA evidence, and Ray Krone was luckily exonerated before his death. Likewise in 2011, Troy Davis was convicted in Georgia for murdering police officer Mark Allen MacPhail. Physical evidence did not convict him, but testimonies from nine witnesses strongly tied him to the case. After Davis’s execution, seven witnesses changed their testimonies, two remained in what they believed...
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...However, in 1976 the supreme court overturned its previous decision in Furman v. Georgia with a new case: Gregg v. Georgia. Troy Gregg was sentenced to death as he was convicted of robbing and murdering two men he was traveling with. Although accepting the robbery accusation he appealed to the supreme court that execution for murder was unconstitutional under the eighth amendment (Oyez). This directly conflicted with the already established case of Furman v. Georgia as the precedent stated that the death penalty was in fact unconstitutional. The problem with Furman v. Georgia case in regards to Gregg was that it answered a different question than the one Gregg raised himself. Gregg’s trial asked if the death penalty was constitutional in its entirety; Furman’s trial asked if it the death penalty was unconstitutional if the legal proceedings were unfair....
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...“Death Penalty” Furman was a poor black man living in Georgia when he broke into William Joseph Micke, Jr’s house, Mr. Micke went downstairs to investigate and saw William Furman in his house with a gun. Furman began to flee the house but tripped in the process and fired the gun accidently shooting Mr. Micke in the chest and killing him instantly. Furman was later found by the police still carrying the gun and arrested for murder. This case is known as Furman v. Georgia and was taken to the Supreme Court on the fact that the death penalty in Georgia violated the Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. This is a landmark case because “The significance of Furman v. Georgia is that this case was the first case that was ruled violating the Eighth amendment and that it halted every man on death row in the United States” (study). But before the case reached the Supreme Court the case went on trial September 20, 1968 where Furman pleaded mentally ill and insane, the court rejected his plea and found him guilty of murder. Then, Furman appealed his conviction and sentence, based on the death penalty in Georgia violating the Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution . The Eighth Amendment says the federal government may not use "cruel and unusual punishments” (Henson). The case was later tried in the Supreme Court January 17, 1972. The justices who won majority and reversed the case were William J. Brennan, Jr., William O. Douglas, Thurgood Marshall, Potter...
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...DEATH PENALTY The Supreme Court of the United States has the authority to decide whether state statutes conflict with the provisions of the Constitution and the Court’s prior interpretations of those provisions. This power of judicial review has given the Supreme Court the crucial responsibility to assure individual rights, as well as to maintain a “living Constitution” whose broad provisions are continually reviewed and applied to complicated new situations. Since Justices are appointed for life, when the Supreme Court rules on an issue involving the interpretation of the U.S. Constitution, that judgment is final unless altered by a constitutional amendment or the Court’s subsequent ruling (Booklet). The Court decides whether specific state statutes are applied rightly or whether a person’s Constitutional rights have been violated. The Constitutionality of the death penalty in the United States has been decided by the Justices of the Supreme Court based on cases appealed from different states. The people who founded the United States came from England and European countries where there had always been a death penalty. This does not mean there are no reasons for states to abolish the death penalty; just that it is currently legal for the states to have this punishment. The present controversy started when the Supreme Court decided in Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238 (1972), that imposition and carrying out of the death penalty in the cases before it constituted...
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...has done is morally unjust, but who can justify that they have greater morality. In many instances the judgment of another has put innocent people to death, life isn’t a game to take chances on. Government plays a huge role in everyone life, whether the person is illegally or not however it should not have the control over any ones existence. In the cases of Furman V. Georgia, and Gregg V. Georgia death has been debated, from both of these cases our government has grown to challenge the decision of death. In the case Furman V. Georgia our government adopted the requirements on...
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...The case of Coker v. Georgia, 433 U.S. 584, (1977), is a United States Supreme Court case which address a claim of cruel and unusual punishment, under the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution, as well as a proportionality claim (Cornell University, n.d.). The petitioner in this case, Ehrlich Anthony Coker, claimed that the state of Georgia had violated his Eighth Amendment rights, when he was given a death sentence for his rape of an adult female, and subsequently claims that the punishment was too severe for the crime he committed, thus the proportionality claim. Ehrlich Anthony Coker was an inmate in a Georgia state prison, serving three life sentences, for rape and murder, as well as two 20 year sentences, and one 8...
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...Trials where the death penalty is a possible sentence have more legal requirements than non-death penalty trials, and therefore, cost more to fulfill these requirements. The requirements include costs for prosecuting and defense attorneys, interpreters, expert witnesses, court reporters, psychiatrists, secretaries, and jury consultants (“Costs of the…”) as well as “the necessity for two trials – one on guilt and one on sentencing” (Dieter). According to an article by the Death Penalty Information Center, “a non-profit organization serving the media and the public with analysis and information on issues concerning capital punishment in the United States” (“What’s New”), “the average cost of defending a trial in a federal death case is $620,932, about eight times that of a federal murder case in which the death penalty was not sought” (“Costs of the…”). Take the state of Washington for example. A study conducted by the University of Seattle determined that “in Washington each death penalty case cost an average of one million dollars more than a similar case where the death penalty was not sought (on average $3.07 million v. $2.01 million)” (“Costs of the…”). Similarly “since the death penalty’s reinstatement in Washington in 1981, Washington has carried out five executions, each costing an average twenty four million dollars” (“Costs of the…”). This exorbitant cost can also be exemplified through the state of California, where the...
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...In 1967 the president, Lyndon Johnson, nominated United States Court of Appeals Judge, Thurgood Marshall to join the Supreme Court. In August of the same year he was confirmed. This made him the first Black American to ever take occupation in the highest American courts. Thurgood was one of the most effective civil rights activist in history, and he was a firm believer in the constitution. He strongly believed the constitution was the source to get Black Americans the equality they were striving for. He was dedicated to being a voice for his people, and he knew what was politically correct when coming from both sides of a good argument. Some say it wasn’t in the best interest of the country to let a black man on the supreme court at the time, but President Johnson’s response was simply, “I believe it’s the right thing to do, the right time to do it, the right man, and the right place.”1 Thurgood Marshall was born on July 2, 1908, in Baltimore, Maryland. His father, William Marshall, the grandson of a slave, worked as a steward at an exclusive club. His mother, Norma, was a kindergarten teacher.2 One of William Marshall's favorite pastimes was to listen to cases at the local courthouse before returning home to rehash the lawyers' arguments with his sons. Thurgood Marshall later recalled, "Now you want to know how I got involved in law? I don't know. The nearest I can get is that my dad, my brother, and I had the most violent arguments you ever heard about anything. I guess we...
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...decades. But there are still a lot of controversies around it. Many people are against the death penalty because of many reasons. For example, everyone should have the right to live, sometimes juries are racially biased and wrongful executions could happen. And some people want the death penalty. They say some felony criminals need retribution and the court needs to show deterrence. This conversation has been brought up again recently because of the case Foster V. Chatman. ABA (American...
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...a.) Explain the guidelines that came out of Furman v. Georgia and its related decisions? Furman v. Georgia brought attention to the death penalty laws in Georgia and proceeded to change them so there would be no racial discrimination. The Furman decision overturned the death penalty for rape. A decision that was similar to Furan v. Georgia was Coley v. State, which was another case where the defendant was convicted of rape and sentenced to death and the Supreme Court, found that death was excessive and disproportionate to sentences imposed in similar cases. b.) How does the race of the victim affect being charged with a capital crime? The criminal justice system is supposed to teat every individual equal and fair. In todays society any crime that occurs between two different races can affect the outcome the offender is charged with. If a situation occurred that involved an African American individual and a Caucasian victim there is a good chance the offender will be charged with a capital crime and vise versa. Any situation that occurs between two races could have any possible outcome, and the outcome is up to how the jury sees the situation. c.) Why might the number of executions increase sharply in the 2000s?...
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...The case that I have been referring to is the case of McCleskey v Kemp, 481 U.S. 279 (1987). This case has held high significance in the legal and social communities. The reason it was so significant was because it was the first case that the plaintiff provided a scientific study to back up their claims that racial discrimination is prevalent in the death sentencing process. It was also significant because it exposed the Supreme Court’s failure to take action against this issue. Fifteen years previously the Supreme Court reviewed the case of Furman v Georgia, 480 U.S. 238 (1972) that highlighted a similar issue. The case resulted in different opinions among the majority of the justices and no clear remedy on how to fix the issue at hand. The McCleskey v Kemp case is the...
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