Death Penalty Free Essay Example, 1250 words

Since Furman attested to the shooting while committing a crime, he would have been culpable of murder and death sentence under the then existing State law based on the felony-murder rule. However, Furman was tried and found guilty of murder and sentenced to death, based on his statement, but the execution was not carried out. The ruling was made by U. S. Supreme court decision which requires consistency in the way the death sentence. This case resulted to the de facto moratorium on death sentence throughout the US. In Coker v. Georgia, the U. S. Supreme Court further consolidated the Furman’s decision together with the court decision on Jackson v. Georgia case and the Branch v. Texas, to nullify the death sentence for rape (Schabas, 55). Additionally, in the case of California v. Anderson, the Supreme Court of California decided that death sentence had violated the constitution. This dismissed Aikens v. California case since all death sentences had been overturned in California. In the case of Jackson v. Georgia, Jackson unlike Furman had tried to commit armed robbery and additionally ended up committing rape. We will write a custom essay sample on Death Penalty or any topic specifically for you Only $17.96 $11.86/pageorder now In the ruling, the supreme court of Georgia found Jackson guilty and convicted him to death sentence. Though the Furman v. Georgia case declared death sentence unconstitutional, in 1976, the case of Gregg v. Georgia reverted this and permitted the death sentence on certain special circumstances. In the case of Atkins v. Virginia, the limitation placed on death sentence was that it was unconstitutional for people with intellectual disability (Schabas, 55). Additionally, the Roper v. Simmons case the death sentence was unconstitutional if carried out on minors (individual under the age of 18 at the time of committing the crime) Prominent judges and chief justices have had differing opinions on the justification of death sentence as a method of punishment (Hull, 15). In this regard, Chief Justice Burger, Justice Harry Blackmun, Justice Lewis F Powell and Justice William H Rehnquist have argued the importance of maintaining death sentence as an appropriate method of punishing capital crimes based on Anglo-American Legal Traditions and The Constitutional Provisions that implicitly authorizes death sentence due to the reference of the 14th Amendment that explains more on â€Å"taking life† Many advocates of the death sentence base their arguments in its favor since the sentence enables to deter capital crimes and is therefore a good tool to be used by police and court prosecutors in making their bargain plea to ensure that the individuals convicted of such crimes do not repeat their crimes again (Smith, 25).