The Right to Protect our Society: Capital Punishment

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             A review of the recent history of capital punishment in America should begin with the fact that there were no executions during the 10-year period between 1967-1977. This occurred in large part due to judicial trends limiting capital sentencing, legislative efforts restricting these decisions, and our society's reluctance to exact vengeance from those individuals convicted of capital offenses. There were also landmark cases in this area of law during this time. The most notable was the United States Supreme Court case Furman versus Georgia in 1972. In this case, the Court found that death penalty laws that were imposed infrequently and under unclear standards were unconstitutional. This determination was based on the Eighth Amendment prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. This legislative decision set a standard that initially seemed to eliminate the possibility of executions in the United States (Grant, 2004).
             After many revisions by the federal government as well as the states" statutes pertaining to capital punishment, the Supreme Court ruled that the death penalty was no longer unconstitutional in Gregg versus Georgia (Grant, 2004). Once capital punishment was reinstated, numerous legal precedents collectively set limitations on the implementation of capital sentencing. For example, in 1977 there was the Coker versus Georgia case that prohibited a capital sentence for the rape of an adult woman. This holding had significant racial implications because traditionally, Georgia classified the rape of a white woman by a black man as a capital offense; while white men convicted of the same offense were given a maximum sentence of 20 years (Bailey, 2003). In an attempt to address issues of race more directly in criminal proceedings, the Court formally recognized the "inestimable privilege" of trial by jury in the 1986 case of Batson versus Kentucky. In that case, the Court stated that the jury represented, "the criminal defendant's fundamental protection of life and liberty against race and color prejudice".