Death Penalty

            Epstein and Kobylka's analysis of the Supreme Court decisions are based on three factors. They look at the court itself, the political environment of the country and the role that interest groups play in Supreme Court decisions. The authors pay attention to the role of the NAACP legal defense fund and the ACLU as interest groups advocating for the abolition of the death penalty. In the years leading up to Furman the NAACP LDF took several approaches to fighting the death penalty. First they attempted to prove racial discrimination in the use of the death penalty. The Wolfgang report showed that black defendants are more likely to be sentenced to death than white defendants. However, the court rejected this line of reasoning. After this failed the NAACP turned its attention to the problem with unitary trials in which guilt and sentencing are established by the jury at the same trial. They also called attention to the problem with standardless sentencing in which the Jury was given no clear cases in which to invoke the death penalty. While the court passed down several favorable rulings on for abolitionists in the 1960's, such as Witherspoon v. Illinois and Baykin v. Alabama., these cases focused only on specifics of these cases and did not address the constitutional validity of unitary sentencing and standardless sentencing. In McGutha v. California and Crampton v. Illinois, abolitionists experienced a defeat. The court ruled that these practices were in fact constitutional. From here the courts moved to address whether the death penalty constituted cruel and unusual punishment. .
             In Furman v. Georgia, marked a major victory for the opponents of the death penalty. In 5 - 4 vote the court found that "Georgia's procedures for implementing the death penalty violated constitutional guarantees." The majority decision was not solid however. Douglas, Brennen and Marshall came out strongly against the death penalty.