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Gregg Vs Georgia Case Study

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In the the Supreme Court case Gregg Vs. Georgia, Justice Stewart concluded that “We now hold that the punishment of death does not invariably violate the Constitution.” (GREGG v. GEORGIA, 1976), answering the question of whether or not capital punishment is ever unconstitutional. Some may argue that Stewart is saying that the death penalty is sometimes considered constitutional, however, it is important to note that if we as Americans don’t enforce the constitutional rights of human beings at all times, the foundation of our nation will slowly begin to lose its strength. If in any way something can be declared as unconstitutional, then from there on out it will never fall into the realm of being constitutional. The Court has to come face to face with the claim that the administration of death, regardless of the offense, is a cruel and unusual punishment, is morally unethical for the government to be conducting, and is a violation of the Constitution. Aside from the fact that death is not only a severe punishment because of the amount of pain and its irreversible finality, the …show more content…

Sentencing a criminal who is mentally retarded is directly going against the Eighth Amendment, which attempts to ‘evolve standards of decency’ in our nation. The Supreme Court of the United States prohibited the execution with mental deficiencies in the Atkins v. Virginia case in 2002. The Constitution enforces a substantive limitation on the States’ abilities to take the life of a criminal who is mentally retarded. (ATKINS V. VIRGINIA, 2002) Ethnic discrimination, financial influences, and factors such as mental retardation are three huge reasons why it is morally necessary to refuse to use the death penalty as a suitable mean of punishment, for this method would time after time fall under the realm of unequal or unjust punishment. (Stevenson, B.

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Worcester v. Georgia By Sydney Stephenson Worcester v. Georgia is a case that impacted tribal sovereignty in the United States and the amount of power the state had over native American territories. Samuel Worcester was a minister affiliated with the ABCFM (American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions). In 1827 the board sent Worcester to join its Cherokee mission in Georgia. Upon his arrival, Worcester began working with Elias Boudinot, the editor of the Cherokee Phoenix (the first Native American newspaper in the United States) to translate religious text into the Cherokee language. Over time Worcester became a close friend of the Cherokee leaders and advised them about their political and legal rights under the Constitution and federal-Cherokee treaties.

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The Supreme Court tested again the procedure and criterion of competency for execution of a mental illness defendant in 2007 in Panetti v. Quarterman (Panetti I). The Supreme Court ruled in Panetti that to be executed an inmate must not only be aware of the reason for his execution, the inmate must have a rational comprehension of the State’s reasoning for his

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State of Georgia V. Marcus Dwayne Dixon (2003) Marcus Dixon was a highly recruited high school football player. His life suddenly took a tragic turn when he was falsely convicted of raping a 15 year old girl. The elements around his false conviction could have been avoided with some reform to the criminal justice courts system. Dixon initially had many charges against him but were narrowed down to statutory rape and aggravated child molestation. There was much racial disparity surrounding the jury on Dixon’s case, in that the county that Dixon committed his “crime” was a predominantly white population.

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1 Compare and Contrast A Summary of First Author From the court case, Glossip v. Gross, Samuel Alito, Supreme Court Justice, argues that lethal injection IS a constitutional method of execution. He argues that lethal injection is “a fast-acting barbiturate sedative that induces a deep, coma-like unconsciousness when given in the amounts used for lethal injection...inhibits all muscular-skeletal movements...inducing cardiac arrest.”

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A life of severe disability, is not a life worth living. Therefore, an infant born with a severe physical or cognitive impairment should not be allowed to live. Or any person for that matter, regardless of age who suffers from a severe cognitive disability should be lawfully killed. At least that is a belief held by a certain professor at Princeton University. Harriet McBryde Johnson, a disability advocate and lawyer had the opportunity to debate these beliefs with Professor Peter Singer.

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The issue in this case is whether the imposition of the sentence of death for the crime of murder under the law of Georgia violated the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. Gregg argued that the sentencing procedure allows for arbitrary grants of mercy that reflects a misinterpretation and ignores the reviewing authority of the Georgia Supreme Court to determine whether each death sentence is proportional to other sentencing for similar crimes. Gregg was pleading for a life sentence instead of death. Georgia argued that the statute did not constitute a cruel and unusual punishment and did not violate the Eighth and Fourteenth amendments. Georgia also argued and proved that there must be specific jury findings as to the circumstances of the crime to determine whether the death sentence was fair for the case.

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The most important issue that must be addressed in this case is the principle of the “evolving standards of decency” and the uses of a national consensus. The “evolving standards of decency” were developed by Trop v. Dulles and have been implemented in one way or another in all of the precedents dealing with “cruel and unusual” punishment. It is important to treat these principles as an important aspect of “cruel and unusual” punishment jurisprudence, therefore turning from these set of principles would be foolish and a disregard for every precedent. However, it is important to acknowledge that each case satisfies the standards by using a different method; some use the presence or lack of state legislature as a judgment of consensus while others look at foreign countries.

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Furman V Georgia The ruling in Furman V Georgia by the United State Supreme Court set a major precedent regarding the death penalty. Furman was an impoverished, black man who was brought to local trial because of a murder he committed. He and his lawyer were given only $150 and a poor man’s trial to settle his case. Furman testified that he accidently killed the victim while trying to rob his house.

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Georgia held its position that the death penalty is not an infringement of the Constitution unless the punishment is unreasonable (“Gregg v. Georgia”, Casebriefs). The Supreme Court voted to uphold Georgia’s decision, stating that the death penalty is not always constitutional when a person has been convicted of intentionally killing another person (“Gregg v. Georgia”, Oyez). However, not all of the justices agreed with this decision with two justices dissenting. Justice Thurgood Marshall objected the Court’s ruling stating that if Americans were more knowledgeable, they would conclude the death penalty as unbefitting to the situation. Justice William Brennan dissented on moral grounds, saying the death penalty is intolerable (“Gregg v. Georgia”, Casebriefs).

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This paper will serve to show that capital punishment is not, in fact, ethically permissible. I will argue this by explaining the government’s duty to its people, and how capital punishment is indeed a violation of these prima facie duties. 1. The government has a duty to protect its people from harm (including murder, abuse of power, etc.). 2.

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Rough Draft Is the death penalty an effective and justified punishment? This is a topic many Americans have discussed for a long time, and has caused much controversy. Both sides have their pros and cons, and they will be discussed. The first point that many people have about capital punishment is that it’s unconstitutional.

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Death penalty or capital punishment is a legal procedure carried out by the government of a state which sentences a convicted person to death. Capital punishment has been a matter of controversy in various countries for decades now. In this essay, Coretta Scott King talks about why she is against the death penalty. The main purpose of this critique is to focus on King’s arguments and evaluate their authenticity and credibility.

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“I believe that more people would be alive today if there were a death penalty.” -Nancy Reagan Most people would be shocked to hear that the death penalty saves lives. Ever since the U.S. Supreme Court decided Gregg v. Georgia in 1976, capital punishment has been legally administered in 31 states in order to punish those who commit grievous crimes and harms to society. What makes capital punishment superior to other forms of punishment is that it generates the most happiness for all those actually or potentially affected by carrying it out. From a utilitarian perspective, capital punishment is morally justified because it maximizes human happiness.

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Before then, the fifth, eighth, and fourteenth Amendments were clarified as allowing the death penalty. Though, in the early 1960s, it was proposed that capital punishment was a “cruel and unusual” punishment, hence it was unconstitutional under the eighth amendment (deathpenaltyinfo). In 1958, the Supreme Court had came to a conclusion in Trop v. Dulles that the eighth Amendment held an “evolving standard of decency that marked the progress of a maturing society.” Though this case was not a death penalty case, abolitionists applied the Court’s reasoning to executions and preserved that the United States had, indeed proceed to a point that its “standard of decency” should no longer condone the death

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(Sunstein, C. R., 2005). Putting an innocent to death is a serious matter that renders the sentence as an act of murder according to the concept of inalienable rights. A failure to point out the state’s illegitimacy in such an act is an admission that rights are not inalienable and they are subject to political manipulation. Political manipulation could include the clouding of judgement from social prejudice (Bouckaert, P. N., 1996) and as a means from crushing dissent (Baldus, D. C., et al,

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