History of Key Supreme Court Decisions
The Supreme Court serves as the major arbiter of when and how the death penalty can be administered in the United States. Through landmark cases, the Court has repeatedly redefined the constitutional boundaries of capital punishment.
In the pivotal 1972 case Furman v. Georgia, the Supreme Court effectively suspended the death penalty nationwide. Furman was convicted of murder after accidentally killing someone during a burglary. The Court ruled that the death penalty, as then administered, constituted cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. This decision forced states to revise their capital punishment laws.
Four years later, in Gregg v. Georgia (1976), the Court considered whether Georgia's revised death penalty statute was constitutional. Gregg had been sentenced to death for armed robbery and murder. The case reopened the door to capital punishment in America.
Did you know? The death penalty was temporarily suspended across the entire United States from 1972 to 1976 because of the Furman decision.
