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Sumner v. Shuman, 483 U.S. 66 (1987) – Mandatory death penalty for a prison inmate who is convicted of murder while serving a life sentence without possibility of parole is unconstitutional. Kennedy v. Louisiana, 554 U.S. 407 (2008) – The death penalty is unconstitutional for child rape and other non-homicidal crimes against the person.
The anti-death penalty movement rose again in response to the reinstatement of capital punishment in many states. In the courts, the movement's response has yielded certain limitations on the death penalty's application. For example, juveniles, the mentally ill, and the intellectually disabled can no longer be executed. [11]
30. Our Eighth Amendment jurisprudence has narrowed the class of offenders eligible for the death penalty to include only those who have committed outrageous crimes defined by specific aggravating factors. It is the cruel treatment of victims that provides the most persuasive arguments for prosecutors seeking the death penalty.
“The crux of the defendant’s argument is that there has been a major shift in public opinion regarding the morality, decency, and humanity of the death penalty,” read one filing signed by ...
Over nearly a century, three members of the Murdaugh family sought the death penalty against more than 30 people, the Post and Courier of Charleston reports. State officials decided against the ...
The Court also found that the death penalty "comports with the basic concept of human dignity at the core of the [Eighth] Amendment". The death penalty serves two principal social purposes—retribution and deterrence. "In part, capital punishment is an expression of society's moral outrage at particularly offensive conduct".
The judges argue that the death sentence was imposed by a judge, not the jury, in what they call “a flaw in Missouri’s capital sentencing scheme.” Pointing to ‘flaw’ in Missouri death ...
Furman ruled that the death penalty was unconstitutional if it were arbitrarily applied in a manner that leads to discriminatory results. The median justices Potter Stewart and Byron White were concerned that erratic and arbitrary imposition of the death penalty violated the constitutional prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. [10]