Title: Still Arbitrary: Capital Sentencing in the Post-Furman Era
Abstract: At the epicenter of modern capital jurisprudence has been a critical question: How do capital jurors make the life or death sentencing decision? Since its 1976 decision in Gregg v. Georgia, Profitt v. Florida, and Jurek v. Texas authorized the states' return to capital punishment, the United States Supreme Court has grappled with the two-part question: To what extent must they be explicitly directed in their decision-making? Once the Court has determined that some constraints are necessary, it then must decide whether they are needed only to correct misbehavior or, more fundamentally, to shape the constitutional contours of capital sentencing. What the Court decides to do, or not to do, often depends on untested assumptions about how jurors do, or will, make the critical punishment decision. In this paper, I review what social science evidence reveals about capital juror decision making in the Post-Furman era. Employing a variety of research methodologies and perspectives, one overwhelming commonality of this research emerges: The use of guided discretion statutes has done little ameliorate the arbitrariness the U.S. Supreme Court condemned 27 years ago in Furman v. Georgia.
Publication Year: 1999
Publication Date: 1999-03-01
Language: en
Type: article
Indexed In: ['crossref']
Access and Citation
Cited By Count: 1
AI Researcher Chatbot
Get quick answers to your questions about the article from our AI researcher chatbot