Listed below are links to different documents involving capital punishment. These links also help support our ideas about the death penalty. Listed at the bottom there are cases that have shaped the death penalty over time. 

108th Congress

National Death Penalty Moratorium Act of 2003, S 132

Justice Enhancement and Domestic Security Act of 2003, S 22
 

107th Congress

 Confidence in Criminal Justice Act of 2002, S 2446

 Capital Defense Counsel Standards Act of 2002, S 2442

 Criminal Justice Integrity and Innocence Protection Act of 2001, S 800
 
 

More Cases

·        Furman v. Georgia (1972), the landmark ruling invalidating capital punishment laws as then administered, and clearly the watershed case in the modern death-penalty era.

·        Gregg v. Georgia  (1976), one of a series of important cases in which the justices announced that punishment by death is not per se cruel and unusual under the Eighth Amendment, and that “guided discretion” statutes are capable of remedying the constitutional infirmities identified by the Furman Court.

·        Woodson v. North Carolina (1976), another of the series of 1976 decisions, in which the Court declared mandatory capital-punishment legislation unconstitutional.

·        Coker v. Georgia (1977), holding that death is a constitutionally excessive punishment for the crime of raping an adult.

·        Enmund v. Florida (1982) and Tison v. Arizona (1987), in which the justices clarified the circumstances under which the “nontrigger-person” in a felony murder can be sentenced to death.

·        Stanford v. Kentucky (1989) and Penry v. Lynaugh (1989), ruling, respectively, that the federal Constitution does not prohibit the execution of 16- and 17-year old murderers, or mentally retarded murderers.

·        Ford v. Wainwright (1986), recognizing that the Eighth Amendment forbids the capital punishment of offenders who have become “incompetent” for execution, and requiring minimal procedural safeguards for resolving incompetency claims.

·        Pulley v. Harris (1984), holding that the federal Constitution does not require “comparative proportionality review” of capital sentences.

·        Godfrey v. Georgia (1980), in which a statutory aggravating factor involving the commission of an “outrageously or wantonly vile, horrible and inhuman...” murder was declared unconstitutionally vague, as applied.

·        Lockett v. Ohio (1978) and McKoy v. North Carolina (1990), ruling, respectively, that the sentencer in a capital trial       must be allowed to consider all relevant mitigating evidence, and that jurors may not be required to agree unanimously that a mitigating factor has been established before crediting mitigation evidence.

·        Blystone v. Penn-sylvania (1990), holding that legislation requiring that a death penalty be imposed if the sentencer finds at least one aggravating factor and no mitigating factors, or that aggravating factors outweigh mitigating factors, does not create an impermissible “mandatory” capital punishment scheme.

·        Spaziano v. Florida (1984), approving Florida’s practice of allowing the trial judge to impose a death sentence in disregard of a jury’s advisory verdict recommending a sentence of life imprisonment.

·        McCleskey v. Kemp (1987), rejecting equal protection and cruel and unusual punishment challenges to Georgia’s death-penalty system, raised by an African American defendant sentenced to death for murdering a white victim, based on a statewide study suggesting that killers of whites were significantly more likely to be charged with capital crimes and sentenced to death than killers of blacks in otherwise similar cases.

·        Payne v. Tennessee (1991), allowing the sentencing authority in capital trials to consider “victim-impact evidence.”

·        Burger v. Kemp (1987), rejecting a capital defendant’s claim that he had received ineffective assistance of counsel.

·        Arizona v. Rumsey (1984), applying double jeopardy principles to the capital-sentencing context.

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