1972
Supreme Court Strikes Down Death Penalty
In Furman v. Georgia, the U.S. Supreme Court rules by a
vote of 5-4 that capital punishment, as it is currently employed on the state
and federal level, is unconstitutional. The majority held that, in violation of
the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution, the death penalty qualified as “cruel
and unusual punishment,” primarily because states employed execution in
“arbitrary and capricious ways,” especially in regard to race. It was the first
time that the nation’s highest court had ruled against capital punishment.
However, because the Supreme Court suggested new legislation that could make
death sentences constitutional again, such as the development of standardized
guidelines for juries that decide sentences, it was not an outright victory for
opponents of the death penalty.
In 1976, with 66 percent of Americans still supporting capital
punishment, the Supreme Court acknowledged progress made in jury guidelines and
reinstated the death penalty under a “model of guided discretion.” In 1977,
Gary Gilmore, a career criminal who had murdered an elderly couple because they
would not lend him their car, was the first person to be executed since the end
of the ban. Defiantly facing a firing squad in Utah, Gilmore’s last words to
his executioners before they shot him through the heart were, “Let’s do it.”