{"id":159,"date":"2017-03-29T14:32:14","date_gmt":"2017-03-29T18:32:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/americanlegalsystem-bowie01\/?p=159"},"modified":"2017-03-29T14:32:14","modified_gmt":"2017-03-29T18:32:14","slug":"gregg-v-georgia-1976","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/americanlegalsystem-bowie01\/2017\/03\/29\/gregg-v-georgia-1976\/","title":{"rendered":"Gregg V. Georgia (1976)"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the case of Gregg v. Georgia, <\/em>Troy Gregg was charged with committing armed robbery and murder. A few days after the crime, Gregg was arrested in Asheville, North Carolina. The .25 caliber pistol used to kill the two victims was found in the Gregg\u2019s pocket. The petitioner then signed a statement in which he admitted shooting and then robbing the two victims.<\/p>\n

The trial was to following the traditional two stage procedure in Georgia, a guilt stage followed by a sentencing stage. At the sentencing stage, the petitioner\u2019s lawyer offered no additional evidence, but rather made lengthy arguments dealing with the legitimacy of capital punishment. The jury was instructed to recommend either a death sentence or a life prison sentence on each count. The jury claimed that it \u201cwould not be authorized to consider imposing the penalty of death unless it first found beyond a reasonable doubt one of these aggravating circumstances: (1) that the murder was committed while the offender was engaged in the commission of other capital felonies, i.e. the armed robberies of the victims; (2) that he committed the murder for the purpose of receiving the victims’ money and automobile; or (3) that the murder was “outrageously and wantonly vile, horrible and inhuman” in that it “involved the depravity of [the] mind of the defendant.\u201d The jury found that the first and second circumstances held true, and they returned verdicts of death on each account. The Supreme Court of Georgia affirmed these convictions.<\/p>\n

The petitioner then challenged the ruling of the death penalty, citing \u201ccruel and unusual punishment\u201d under the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. The case was then brought to the US Supreme Court. The main legal question in this case reads as follows: \u201cIs the death penalty considered cruel and unusual punishment under the 8th<\/sup> and 14th<\/sup> Amendments?\u201d The holding of the case was 7-2 \u201cNo\u201d and the opinion was written by Justice Stewart.<\/p>\n

I agree with Justice Stewart, Justice Powell, and Justice Stevens in their conclusion that capital punishment does not violate the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. The Eighth Amendment forbids excessive punishment because it involves the \u201cunnecessary and wanton infliction of pain or because it is grossly disproportionate to the severity of the crime.\u201d The existence of capital punishment was accepted by the Framers of the Constitution, and for the last two centuries, the death penalty for the crime of murder was not seen as invalid. Legislative standards brought about by chosen representatives heavily govern the standards of the death penalty. The standards of the death penalty in Georgia were met when the jury found that Gregg aggravated two of their three circumstance criteria. The deterrence effect is also a valid explanation for capital punishment since it provides a societal benefit. Lastly, capital punishment for the crime of murder cannot be seen as disproportionate to the severity of that crime since they both produce the same outcome. Concluding, I do not believe that capital punishment is a violation of \u201ccruel and unusual\u201d punishment in cases of murder because it is completely proportionate to the crime committed and it also provides a societal benefit. One can go beyond this in their rejection of the death penalty on the basis of morality and the right to take a life. As far as criminal procedure and past legal precedent, capital punishment should not be considered cruel and unusual punishment when used in the right circumstances.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the case of Gregg v. Georgia, Troy Gregg was charged with committing armed robbery and murder. A few days after the crime, Gregg was arrested in Asheville, North Carolina. The .25 caliber pistol used to kill the two victims was found in the Gregg\u2019s pocket. The petitioner then signed …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3321,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[62781],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-159","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gregg-v-georgia","column","twocol"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/americanlegalsystem-bowie01\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/americanlegalsystem-bowie01\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/americanlegalsystem-bowie01\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/americanlegalsystem-bowie01\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3321"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/americanlegalsystem-bowie01\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=159"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/americanlegalsystem-bowie01\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/americanlegalsystem-bowie01\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/americanlegalsystem-bowie01\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/americanlegalsystem-bowie01\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}