Appellant
William Henry Furman
Appellee
State of Georgia
Appellant's Claim
That the Georgia death penalty constituted cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eight and Fourteenth Amendments.
Chief Lawyers for Appellant
Anthony G. Amsterdam, Elizabeth B. Dubois, Jack Greenberg, Jack Himmelstein,B. Clarence Mayfield, Michael Meltsner
Chief Lawyers for Appellee
Dorothy T. Beasley, Arthur K. Bolton, Harold N. Hill, Jr., Andrew J. Ryan, Jr., Andrew J. Ryan III, Courtney Wilder Stanton
Justices for the Court
William J. Brennan, Jr., William O. Douglas, Thurgood Marshall, Potter Stewart, Byron R. White (unsigned)
Justices Dissenting
Harry A. Blackmun, Warren E. Burger, Lewis F. Powell, Jr., William H. Rehnquist
Place
Washington, D.C.
Date of Decision
29 June 1972
Decision
Georgia death penalty statute declared unconstitutional.
Significance
Although Furman v. Georgia did not completely abolish the death penalty, it placed stringent requirements on death penalty statutes.
On the night of 11 August 1967, 29-year-old William Joseph Micke, Jr. came home from work to his wife and five children in the city of Savannah, Georgia.He went to bed around midnight. Two hours later, the Mickes were awakened bystrange noises in the kitchen. Thinking that one of his children was sleepwalking, William Micke went into the kitchen to investigate. He found William Henry Furman there, a 26-year-old African American man who had broken into thehouse and was carrying a gun. Furman fled the house, shooting Micke as he left. The bullet hit Micke in the chest and he died instantly. Micke's family promptly called the police, who arrived on the scene within minutes. The policesearched the neighborhood and found Furman, who was still carrying the murder weapon.
Furman was charged with murder and was tried in the Superior Court of ChathamCounty, Georgia on 20 September 1968. Furman was a poor man, and he got a poor man's trial. His court-appointed lawyer, B. Clarence Mayfield, received the court-approved standard retainer for murder cases: $150, which did not include costs. The trial lasted just one day: the jury was selected at 10:00 a.m., the evidence was presented and the judge's instructions to the jury given by 3:30 p.m., and the jury's guilty verdict was returned at 5:00 p.m.
Long before the trial, the court committed Furman to the Georgia Central State Hospital at Milledgeville for psychological examination. Furman had droppedout of school after the sixth grade, and he tested in the lowest four percent of the test's intelligence range. The hospital diagnosed Furman as being mentally deficient and subject to psychotic episodes. Nevertheless, the court denied Furman's insanity plea at trial.
Furman Sentenced to Death
Under Georgia law, Furman faced the death penalty. This was despite the factthat Furman had testified that his shooting of Micke was accidental:
Georgia's death penalty statute, however, permitted executions even for unintended killings. So long as Furman had broken into the Micke house illegally,it was irrelevant that his shooting was accidental since that shooting had caused Micke's death while Furman was committing a criminal act. The judge's instructions to the jury made this clear:
The Georgia Supreme Court affirmed Furman's conviction and death sentence on24 April 1969, but on 3 May 1969 Chief Justice W. H. Duckworth stayed the execution so that Furman could file a petition with the U.S. Supreme Court. Furman was no longer represented solely by court-appointed counsel: his case hadgenerated some publicity, and several lawyers were now handling his appeal.
On 17 January 1972 the parties argued their case before the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C. The Court had agreed to hear the case to answer the legal question of whether the death penalty violates the Eighth Amendment to theU.S. Constitution, which states that "Excessive bail shall not be required,nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted."
The Court issued its decision 29 June 1972. By a narrow 5-4 majority, the justices voted to overturn Furman's conviction on the grounds that in his case the death penalty constituted cruel and unusual punishment. The justices weredeeply divided over how to interpret the Eighth Amendment, however. All ninejustices filed separate opinions stating their legal reasoning, which is highly unusual. For the most part, Justice William O. Douglas' opinion spoke forthe five-member majority.
Court Severely Restricts Death Penalty
Douglas reviewed the history of capital punishment under the English common law, from the Norman Conquest in 1066 through the American colonial period andup to the ratification of the Constitution. He noted that English law had evolved to consider the death penalty unfair when applied selectively to minorities, outcasts and unpopular groups. In America, the Court had already held that discriminatory enforcement of the law violates the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Therefore, if a death penalty statute was applied in a discriminatory manner, it was unfair and constituted cruel and unusual punishment. For Furman, the death penalty was unfair because there had notbeen enough protection for him at trial. He had gotten a quick one-day trialand he was African American, poor, uneducated, and mentally ill:
The rest of Douglas' opinion reads almost like a professional case study of prisoner treatment throughout the United States. Based on surveys and statistics drawn from a variety of sources, Douglas concluded that the death penaltywas disproportionately applied to African Americans, the poor, and other groups who are at a disadvantage in society:
Justices Brennan and Marshall, who had voted with Douglas, wrote opinions that called for the complete abolition of the death penalty for all crimes and under any circumstances. They were in the minority, however, and so Douglas' opinion embodied the impact of the Court's decision: the death penalty could still be imposed, but only if the law bent over backwards to make sure that people like Furman were protected.
While Furman v. Georgia was hailed as a landmark decision protecting minorities and other historically oppressed groups, it did not give the statesmuch guidance on what they had to do to make their death penalty statutes comply with the Eighth Amendment. In the 1976 case of Gregg v. Georgia,the Court upheld the death penalty imposed on a convicted murderer under a revamped Georgia statute that required sentencing hearings and other protectiveprocedures. Most states with death penalty statutes have followed Gregg and modified their laws so there are procedures to protect the poor, minorities, the mentally ill, and other groups. Further, most states have repealedthe death penalty for accidental killings and other crimes less serious thancold-blooded intentional murder.
Furman v. Georgia did not forbid capital punishment, but it did placestrict requirements on death penalty statutes, at both the state and federallevels, based on the Eighth Amendment.
Jackson and Branch
In the two cases decided with Furman, Jackson v. Georgia and Branch v. Texas, the petitioners Jackson and Branch were both convictedof rape and sentenced to death. Jackson, an African American male who had escaped from a work gang, entered a woman's home and committed a rape and robbery of that woman. At trial, a psychiatrist testified that Jackson was not schizophrenic and was competent to stand trial, when in fact he was not. The Supreme Court, using the same reasoning as that applied to Furman, said that the unequal application of the death penalty that does not protect due process for all citizens is unconstitutional. The facts in Branch were substantially similar. Branch was an African American male who was convicted ofraping an elderly woman. At trial, it was determined that Branch had a belowaverage IQ and was in the lowest fourth-percentile in his class. He was sentenced to death nonetheless. The Supreme Court, again, said that the unequal application of the death penalty where some prejudices might exist is not constitutional in those cases.
Related Cases
First- and Second-Degree Murder
In 1794, Pennsylvania became the first state to establish a legal distinctionbetween first-degree murder--that is, "willful, deliberate, or premeditatedkilling"--and a second degree of murder charges, in which the defendant was judged to be less culpable due to a lesser intent or other mitigating circumstances.
Since that time, other states have adopted their own standards of first-degree (or capital) murder on the basis of a variety of circumstances. Some of thefactors involved in the determination of first-murder in various states arethe use of torture; murdering for financial gain; killing a police officer orother public official; killing during the commission of a felony such as rape, robbery, kidnapping, or the performance of a sexual act with a person under the age of fourteen; use of an explosive; a prior record for murder; and murder that involves--to use a phrase from the 1794 Pennsylvania statute--lyingin wait for the victim.
Just as misdemeanors are generally understood as that class of crimes which are not classified as felonies, so second-degree murder is usually any type ofmurder that does not qualify as first-degree.
Sources
Sifakis, Carl. The Encyclopedia of American Crime. New York: Facts onFile, 1982.
William Henry Furman
Appellee
State of Georgia
Appellant's Claim
That the Georgia death penalty constituted cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eight and Fourteenth Amendments.
Chief Lawyers for Appellant
Anthony G. Amsterdam, Elizabeth B. Dubois, Jack Greenberg, Jack Himmelstein,B. Clarence Mayfield, Michael Meltsner
Chief Lawyers for Appellee
Dorothy T. Beasley, Arthur K. Bolton, Harold N. Hill, Jr., Andrew J. Ryan, Jr., Andrew J. Ryan III, Courtney Wilder Stanton
Justices for the Court
William J. Brennan, Jr., William O. Douglas, Thurgood Marshall, Potter Stewart, Byron R. White (unsigned)
Justices Dissenting
Harry A. Blackmun, Warren E. Burger, Lewis F. Powell, Jr., William H. Rehnquist
Place
Washington, D.C.
Date of Decision
29 June 1972
Decision
Georgia death penalty statute declared unconstitutional.
Significance
Although Furman v. Georgia did not completely abolish the death penalty, it placed stringent requirements on death penalty statutes.
On the night of 11 August 1967, 29-year-old William Joseph Micke, Jr. came home from work to his wife and five children in the city of Savannah, Georgia.He went to bed around midnight. Two hours later, the Mickes were awakened bystrange noises in the kitchen. Thinking that one of his children was sleepwalking, William Micke went into the kitchen to investigate. He found William Henry Furman there, a 26-year-old African American man who had broken into thehouse and was carrying a gun. Furman fled the house, shooting Micke as he left. The bullet hit Micke in the chest and he died instantly. Micke's family promptly called the police, who arrived on the scene within minutes. The policesearched the neighborhood and found Furman, who was still carrying the murder weapon.
Furman was charged with murder and was tried in the Superior Court of ChathamCounty, Georgia on 20 September 1968. Furman was a poor man, and he got a poor man's trial. His court-appointed lawyer, B. Clarence Mayfield, received the court-approved standard retainer for murder cases: $150, which did not include costs. The trial lasted just one day: the jury was selected at 10:00 a.m., the evidence was presented and the judge's instructions to the jury given by 3:30 p.m., and the jury's guilty verdict was returned at 5:00 p.m.
Long before the trial, the court committed Furman to the Georgia Central State Hospital at Milledgeville for psychological examination. Furman had droppedout of school after the sixth grade, and he tested in the lowest four percent of the test's intelligence range. The hospital diagnosed Furman as being mentally deficient and subject to psychotic episodes. Nevertheless, the court denied Furman's insanity plea at trial.
Furman Sentenced to Death
Under Georgia law, Furman faced the death penalty. This was despite the factthat Furman had testified that his shooting of Micke was accidental:
I admit going to these folks' home and they did caught me in there and Iwas coming back out, backing up and there was a wire down there on the floor.I was coming out backwards and fell back and I didn't intend to kill nobody. . . The gun went off and I didn't know nothing about no murder until they arrested me, and when the gun went off I was down on the floor and I got up and ran. That's all to it.
Georgia's death penalty statute, however, permitted executions even for unintended killings. So long as Furman had broken into the Micke house illegally,it was irrelevant that his shooting was accidental since that shooting had caused Micke's death while Furman was committing a criminal act. The judge's instructions to the jury made this clear:
If you believe beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant broke and entered the dwelling of the deceased with intent to commit a felony or a larceny and that after so breaking and entering with such intent, the defendant killed the deceased in the mannerset forth in the indictment, and if you find that such killing was the natural, reasonable and probable consequence of such breaking and entering, then Iinstruct you that under such circumstances, you would be authorized to convict the defendant of murder and this you would be authorized to do whether thedefendant intended to kill the deceased or not.
The Georgia Supreme Court affirmed Furman's conviction and death sentence on24 April 1969, but on 3 May 1969 Chief Justice W. H. Duckworth stayed the execution so that Furman could file a petition with the U.S. Supreme Court. Furman was no longer represented solely by court-appointed counsel: his case hadgenerated some publicity, and several lawyers were now handling his appeal.
On 17 January 1972 the parties argued their case before the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C. The Court had agreed to hear the case to answer the legal question of whether the death penalty violates the Eighth Amendment to theU.S. Constitution, which states that "Excessive bail shall not be required,nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted."
The Court issued its decision 29 June 1972. By a narrow 5-4 majority, the justices voted to overturn Furman's conviction on the grounds that in his case the death penalty constituted cruel and unusual punishment. The justices weredeeply divided over how to interpret the Eighth Amendment, however. All ninejustices filed separate opinions stating their legal reasoning, which is highly unusual. For the most part, Justice William O. Douglas' opinion spoke forthe five-member majority.
Court Severely Restricts Death Penalty
Douglas reviewed the history of capital punishment under the English common law, from the Norman Conquest in 1066 through the American colonial period andup to the ratification of the Constitution. He noted that English law had evolved to consider the death penalty unfair when applied selectively to minorities, outcasts and unpopular groups. In America, the Court had already held that discriminatory enforcement of the law violates the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Therefore, if a death penalty statute was applied in a discriminatory manner, it was unfair and constituted cruel and unusual punishment. For Furman, the death penalty was unfair because there had notbeen enough protection for him at trial. He had gotten a quick one-day trialand he was African American, poor, uneducated, and mentally ill:
The generality of a law inflicting capital punishment is one thing. What maybe said of the validity of a law on the books and what may be done with the law in its application do, or may, lead to quite different conclusions.
It would seem to be incontestable that the death penalty inflicted on one defendant is "unusual" if it discriminates against him by reason ofhis race, religion, wealth, social position, or class, or if it is imposed under a procedure that gives room for the play of such prejudices.
The rest of Douglas' opinion reads almost like a professional case study of prisoner treatment throughout the United States. Based on surveys and statistics drawn from a variety of sources, Douglas concluded that the death penaltywas disproportionately applied to African Americans, the poor, and other groups who are at a disadvantage in society:
Former Attorney GeneralRamsey Clark has said, "It is the poor, the sick, the ignorant, the powerlessand the hated who are executed." One searches our chronicles in vain for theexecution of any member of the affluent strata of this society.
Justices Brennan and Marshall, who had voted with Douglas, wrote opinions that called for the complete abolition of the death penalty for all crimes and under any circumstances. They were in the minority, however, and so Douglas' opinion embodied the impact of the Court's decision: the death penalty could still be imposed, but only if the law bent over backwards to make sure that people like Furman were protected.
While Furman v. Georgia was hailed as a landmark decision protecting minorities and other historically oppressed groups, it did not give the statesmuch guidance on what they had to do to make their death penalty statutes comply with the Eighth Amendment. In the 1976 case of Gregg v. Georgia,the Court upheld the death penalty imposed on a convicted murderer under a revamped Georgia statute that required sentencing hearings and other protectiveprocedures. Most states with death penalty statutes have followed Gregg and modified their laws so there are procedures to protect the poor, minorities, the mentally ill, and other groups. Further, most states have repealedthe death penalty for accidental killings and other crimes less serious thancold-blooded intentional murder.
Furman v. Georgia did not forbid capital punishment, but it did placestrict requirements on death penalty statutes, at both the state and federallevels, based on the Eighth Amendment.
Jackson and Branch
In the two cases decided with Furman, Jackson v. Georgia and Branch v. Texas, the petitioners Jackson and Branch were both convictedof rape and sentenced to death. Jackson, an African American male who had escaped from a work gang, entered a woman's home and committed a rape and robbery of that woman. At trial, a psychiatrist testified that Jackson was not schizophrenic and was competent to stand trial, when in fact he was not. The Supreme Court, using the same reasoning as that applied to Furman, said that the unequal application of the death penalty that does not protect due process for all citizens is unconstitutional. The facts in Branch were substantially similar. Branch was an African American male who was convicted ofraping an elderly woman. At trial, it was determined that Branch had a belowaverage IQ and was in the lowest fourth-percentile in his class. He was sentenced to death nonetheless. The Supreme Court, again, said that the unequal application of the death penalty where some prejudices might exist is not constitutional in those cases.
Related Cases
- Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U.S. 356 (1886).
- Louisiana ex rel. Francis v. Resweber, 329 U.S. 459 (1947).
- Reid v. Covert, 354 U.S. 1 (1957).
- Trop v. Dulles, 356 U.S. 86 (1958).
- Robinson v. California, 370 U.S. 660 (1962).
- Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335 (1963).
- Malloy v. Hogan, 378 U.S. 1 (1964).
- Witherspoon v. Illinois, 391 U.S. 510 (1968).
First- and Second-Degree Murder
In 1794, Pennsylvania became the first state to establish a legal distinctionbetween first-degree murder--that is, "willful, deliberate, or premeditatedkilling"--and a second degree of murder charges, in which the defendant was judged to be less culpable due to a lesser intent or other mitigating circumstances.
Since that time, other states have adopted their own standards of first-degree (or capital) murder on the basis of a variety of circumstances. Some of thefactors involved in the determination of first-murder in various states arethe use of torture; murdering for financial gain; killing a police officer orother public official; killing during the commission of a felony such as rape, robbery, kidnapping, or the performance of a sexual act with a person under the age of fourteen; use of an explosive; a prior record for murder; and murder that involves--to use a phrase from the 1794 Pennsylvania statute--lyingin wait for the victim.
Just as misdemeanors are generally understood as that class of crimes which are not classified as felonies, so second-degree murder is usually any type ofmurder that does not qualify as first-degree.
Sources
Sifakis, Carl. The Encyclopedia of American Crime. New York: Facts onFile, 1982.
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