Summary Of The Supreme Court Case Of Furman V. Georgia

Furman VS. Georgia

William Henry Furman, a 26 year old from Georgia, had broken into someone home and was in the process of going through the homeowner things. The homeowner was awaken and surprised Furman and attempted to apprehend him. Furman was armed with a revolver; however, he still ran away. Upon trying to flee out the house Furman dropped his firearm and it discharged on accident as it landed on the ground, hitting and killing the homeowner. Although his initial intentions were to commit theft, it was described as a freak accident that resulted in murder.

Once the police question him, William Henry Furman, claimed the firearm was discharged on accident. When reviewing the case, Georgia state law explained, because of the face the murder took place during a robbery, Furman was eligible to be executed if the court found him guilty of the murder. “Furman was arrested, tried, and found guilty of murder. The jury had the choice of sentencing Furman to life imprisonment or to death. It chose death.” ("Supreme Court Cases.") William Furman

The Supreme Court decided that the actual acted of the death wasn’t unconstitutional “but that the procedures and applications as practices by the States were.” ("Supreme Court Cases.") The original ruling was overturned and William Furman would not be executed. The court in the case explained that only way capital punishment would be eligible is if they could form a uniform policy. Without a uniform policy, the death penalty will be considered as a cruel and unusual punishment. This lead to the death penalty being ruled illegal within the United States in 1976 for a while, but the Supreme Court later ruled “that the death penalty was allowed only in the event that the sentencing was delivered at the time of the trial and that the jury who had sentenced the individual to death was determined to review the details of the case.”