Furman v. Georgia
1972 U.S. Supreme Court case declaring arbitrary use of the death penalty unconstitutional
Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238 (1972), was a landmark criminal case in which the United States Supreme Court decided that arbitrary and inconsistent imposition of the death penalty violates the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments, and constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. It was a per curiam decision. Five justices each wrote separately in support of the decision. Although the justices did not rule that the death penalty was unconstitutional, the Furman decision invalidated the death sentences of nearly 700 people. The decision mandated a degree of consistency in the application of the death penalty. This case resulted in a de facto moratorium of capital punishment throughout the United States. Dozens of states rewrote their death penalty laws, most of which were upheld in the 1976 case Gregg v. Georgia.
The Supreme Court consolidated the cases Jackson v.
“Furman v. Georgia” enters the record as 1972 U.S. Supreme Court case declaring arbitrary use of the death penalty unconstitutional. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Furman, Georgia and Supreme can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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This entry incorporates text from “Furman v. Georgia” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.