Capital Punishment: A Legal Overview Including the Supreme Court Decisions of the 2004-2005 Term (CRS Report for Congress)
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| Release Date |
July 22, 2005 |
| Report Number |
RL33008 |
| Report Type |
Report |
| Authors |
Paul Starett Wallace, Jr., American Law Division |
| Source Agency |
Congressional Research Service |
Summary:
Executions declined through the 1950s and 1960s and ceased after 1967, pending definitive
Supreme
Court decisions. This interval ended only after States altered their laws in response to the 1972
Supreme Court decision in Furman v. Georgia , a 5-4 decision deciding that the death penalty,
as
imposed under existing law, constituted cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth and
Fourteenth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution. In Furman, the Court ruled that the death
penalty
was arbitrarily and capriciously applied under existing law based on the unlimited discretion
accorded to sentencing authorities in capital trials. In response, States began to revise their statutes
to modify the discretion given to sentencing authorities. These statutes went untested until the Court
decided Gregg v. Georgia in 1976 in which it found in a 7-2 decision, that the death penalty
did not
per se violate the Eighth Amendment. The Gregg decision allowed States to establish the
death
penalty under guidelines that excluded the arbitrariness of sentencing in capital cases. As a result,
statutory safeguards were developed to make sentencing more just and fair. Some of the changes
included (1) in death penalty cases, the determination of guilt or innocence must be decided
separately from hearings in which sentences of life imprisonment or death are decided; (2) the court
must consider aggravating and mitigating circumstances in relationship to the crime and the
defendant; and (3) the death sentence must be subject to review by the highest State court of appeals
to make sure that the penalty is in proportion to the seriousness or gravity of the offense and is
imposed even-handedly under State law. Like the statutory safeguards, the capital cases decided by
the Court in the 2004-5 term also reflect its sentiment that if there is going to be a death penalty, the
process must be fair.
The Supreme Court abolished the practice of executing mentally retarded persons in
Atkins v.
Virginia and juveniles who commit a capital crime while under the age of 18 in Roper v.
Simmons .
The Court ruled that these executions were prohibited on Eighth Amendment "cruel and
unusual
punishment" grounds. The Court expanded its doctrine on the "ineffective assistance
of counsel"
in setting aside the death sentence for the petitioner in Rompilla v. Beard because his lawyers
failed
to search files on his past convictions for mitigating evidence in spite of their conscientious efforts
which led them to believe that it would be a waste of time. However, the Court determined in
Bell
v. Thompson that the scheduling of an execution was reasonable and the actions of the Court
of
Appeals were an abuse of discretion, although the case was remanded for an ineffective assistance
of counsel hearing by the Court of Appeals while acting upon an honest belief that its previous ruling
had been decided erroneously. Also, the Court's decision in Miller-El v. Dretke
reflected an
affirmation of its condemnation of racial discrimination in the use of peremptory challenges.
