Appellant
Ehrlich Anthony Coker
Appellee
State of Georgia
Appellant's Claim
That the death penalty for rape violates the Constitution's Eighth Amendment.
Chief Lawyer for Appellant
David E. Kendall
Chief Lawyer for Appellee
B. Dean Grindle, Jr., Assistant Attorney General of Georgia
Justices for the Court
Harry A. Blackmun, William J. Brennan, Jr., Thurgood Marshall, John Paul Stevens, Potter Stewart, Byron R. White (writing for the Court)
Justices Dissenting
Warren E. Burger, Lewis F. Powell, Jr., William H. Rehnquist
Place
Washington, D.C.
Date of Decision
29 June 1977
Decision
In a split decision, the Court ruled that Georgia's death penalty for rape violated the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution.
Significance
Many feminists celebrated this decision, believing the death penalty made juries less likely to convict rapists. They also thought it would discourage theold idea that a woman was the property of her husband or father and became valueless to them after a rape.
On 2 September 1974, Ehrlich Anthony Coker escaped from the Ware CorrectionalInstitution near Waycross, Georgia. He had been serving six separate sentences, including two terms of life imprisonment for assault, kidnapping, rape, and murder. At about 11:00 p.m., he entered an unlatched kitchen door and attacked the married couple he found inside. He tied up the man and took his money and car keys. Then he raped the 16-year-old woman at knife point and forcedher to accompany him as he continued his flight in the couple's car. The police caught Coker.
Coker stood trial, and a jury convicted him on all counts. At a separate sentencing hearing, the jury considered whether Coker should receive the death penalty for rape. Georgia's statutes permitted the death penalty when a rape "(i) . . . was committed by a person with a prior record of conviction for a capital felony; (ii) the offense was committed while the offender was engaged in another capital felony or in aggravated battery; and (iii) the offense was`wantonly vile, horrible, or inhuman in that it involved torture, depravity of mind, or an aggravated battery to the victim.'" The first two aggravating circumstances applied to Coker, and the jury sentenced him to death by electrocution.
On Appeal
Coker appealed to the Georgia Supreme Court, which upheld both his convictionand his sentence of death by electrocution. He then appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which agreed to examine just one question raised by the case: whether "the punishment of death for rape violates the Eighth Amendment, which proscribes `cruel and unusual punishments' and which must be observed by the states as well as the federal government."
On 28 March 1977, Coker's attorney argued that the death penalty was too severe a punishment for rape and therefore violated the Eighth Amendment. Ruth Bader Ginsburg and others filed an amici curiae, or friend of the court,brief on behalf of the American Civil Liberties Union and other organizations.
Assistant Attorney General Grindle argued that the death penalty was a punishment commensurate with the crime of rape in certain irritant circumstances and that the Constitution permitted it.
The Verdict
The Supreme Court ruled on 29 June 1977, that Georgia's death penalty for rape was unconstitutional. Justice White, in a plurality opinion joined by Justices Blackmun, Stevens, and Stewart, ruled that the death penalty for deliberate murder was neither too severe nor "grossly disproportionate to the crime."
However, noting that the Court had "reserved the question of the constitutionality of the death penalty when imposed for other crimes," White turned to the case at hand and wrote: "We have concluded that a sentence of death is grossly disproportionate and excessive punishment for the crime of rape and is therefore forbidden by the Eighth Amendment as cruel and unusual punishment."
He elaborated that while the crime of rape was serious, reprehensible in a moral sense, and showing "almost total contempt for the personal integrity andautonomy of the female victim," still "it does not compare with murder, whichdoes involve the unjustified taking of human life."
He continued, "Although it may be accompanied by another crime, rape by definition does not include the death of or even the serious injury to another person . . . Life is over for the victim of the murderer; for the rape victim, life may not be nearly so happy as it was, it is not over and normally is notbeyond repair." Therefore, "the death penalty . . . is excessive for the rapist who, as such, does not take human life."
Justices Brennan and Marshall, in separate concurring opinions, concluded that the death penalty was cruel and unusual punishment prohibited in all cases.Justice Powell agreed that the death penalty was a disproportionate punishment in Coker's case, since the victim did not suffer a serious nor lasting injury. He dissented, however, from the view that a death penalty would be unconstitutional in "the case of an outrageous rape resulting in serious, lastingharm for the victim," a question he said he "would not prejudge."
Nothing Left to Lose
Justice Burger, joined by Justice Rehnquist, filed a scathing dissenting opinion. Burger outlined Coker's criminal history, noting that he had raped and stabbed to death one young woman; kidnapped, raped, and beat nearly to death another young woman; and, after his escape from prison, raped, threatened withdeath, and kidnapped the woman from Waycross, Georgia. The ruling that Cokercould not be executed, Burger wrote, "prevents the State from imposing any effective punishment upon Coker for his latest rape . . . [and] bars Georgia from guaranteeing its citizens that they will suffer no further attacks by this habitual rapist." Burger agreed that he "accept[ed] that the Eighth Amendment's concept of disproportionality bars the death penalty for minor crimes. But rape is not a minor crime . . . " Rather, he wrote later in the opinion:
Burger concluded that "if murder is properly punishable by death, rape shouldbe also, if that is the considered judgment of the legislators."
Ginsburg Revisits Her Brief
Sixteen years later, during the confirmation hearings upon her appointment tothe Supreme Court, Ruth Bader Ginsburg discussed her amicus curiae brief in the case and her continued support for the decision reached in Coker v. Georgia. The death penalty for rape, she said:
Pressed by Senator Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), who was questioning her, toconcede that her brief reflected a view that the death penalty itself was unconstitutional, Ginsburg shot back:
According to Linda Fairstein, director of the Sex Crimes Unit in the Manhattan district attorney's office, the conviction rate in rape cases has greatly increased during the 1980s and 1990s. In addition to the elimination of the death penalty for rape, other measures passed in the 1970s have helped to makethis possible. These include the elimination of requirements that a rape be witnessed and its victim use earnest resistance, as well as the passage of rape shield laws which prohibit testimony about a victim's prior sexual history.
Related Cases
Ehrlich Anthony Coker
Appellee
State of Georgia
Appellant's Claim
That the death penalty for rape violates the Constitution's Eighth Amendment.
Chief Lawyer for Appellant
David E. Kendall
Chief Lawyer for Appellee
B. Dean Grindle, Jr., Assistant Attorney General of Georgia
Justices for the Court
Harry A. Blackmun, William J. Brennan, Jr., Thurgood Marshall, John Paul Stevens, Potter Stewart, Byron R. White (writing for the Court)
Justices Dissenting
Warren E. Burger, Lewis F. Powell, Jr., William H. Rehnquist
Place
Washington, D.C.
Date of Decision
29 June 1977
Decision
In a split decision, the Court ruled that Georgia's death penalty for rape violated the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution.
Significance
Many feminists celebrated this decision, believing the death penalty made juries less likely to convict rapists. They also thought it would discourage theold idea that a woman was the property of her husband or father and became valueless to them after a rape.
On 2 September 1974, Ehrlich Anthony Coker escaped from the Ware CorrectionalInstitution near Waycross, Georgia. He had been serving six separate sentences, including two terms of life imprisonment for assault, kidnapping, rape, and murder. At about 11:00 p.m., he entered an unlatched kitchen door and attacked the married couple he found inside. He tied up the man and took his money and car keys. Then he raped the 16-year-old woman at knife point and forcedher to accompany him as he continued his flight in the couple's car. The police caught Coker.
Coker stood trial, and a jury convicted him on all counts. At a separate sentencing hearing, the jury considered whether Coker should receive the death penalty for rape. Georgia's statutes permitted the death penalty when a rape "(i) . . . was committed by a person with a prior record of conviction for a capital felony; (ii) the offense was committed while the offender was engaged in another capital felony or in aggravated battery; and (iii) the offense was`wantonly vile, horrible, or inhuman in that it involved torture, depravity of mind, or an aggravated battery to the victim.'" The first two aggravating circumstances applied to Coker, and the jury sentenced him to death by electrocution.
On Appeal
Coker appealed to the Georgia Supreme Court, which upheld both his convictionand his sentence of death by electrocution. He then appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which agreed to examine just one question raised by the case: whether "the punishment of death for rape violates the Eighth Amendment, which proscribes `cruel and unusual punishments' and which must be observed by the states as well as the federal government."
On 28 March 1977, Coker's attorney argued that the death penalty was too severe a punishment for rape and therefore violated the Eighth Amendment. Ruth Bader Ginsburg and others filed an amici curiae, or friend of the court,brief on behalf of the American Civil Liberties Union and other organizations.
Assistant Attorney General Grindle argued that the death penalty was a punishment commensurate with the crime of rape in certain irritant circumstances and that the Constitution permitted it.
The Verdict
The Supreme Court ruled on 29 June 1977, that Georgia's death penalty for rape was unconstitutional. Justice White, in a plurality opinion joined by Justices Blackmun, Stevens, and Stewart, ruled that the death penalty for deliberate murder was neither too severe nor "grossly disproportionate to the crime."
However, noting that the Court had "reserved the question of the constitutionality of the death penalty when imposed for other crimes," White turned to the case at hand and wrote: "We have concluded that a sentence of death is grossly disproportionate and excessive punishment for the crime of rape and is therefore forbidden by the Eighth Amendment as cruel and unusual punishment."
He elaborated that while the crime of rape was serious, reprehensible in a moral sense, and showing "almost total contempt for the personal integrity andautonomy of the female victim," still "it does not compare with murder, whichdoes involve the unjustified taking of human life."
He continued, "Although it may be accompanied by another crime, rape by definition does not include the death of or even the serious injury to another person . . . Life is over for the victim of the murderer; for the rape victim, life may not be nearly so happy as it was, it is not over and normally is notbeyond repair." Therefore, "the death penalty . . . is excessive for the rapist who, as such, does not take human life."
Justices Brennan and Marshall, in separate concurring opinions, concluded that the death penalty was cruel and unusual punishment prohibited in all cases.Justice Powell agreed that the death penalty was a disproportionate punishment in Coker's case, since the victim did not suffer a serious nor lasting injury. He dissented, however, from the view that a death penalty would be unconstitutional in "the case of an outrageous rape resulting in serious, lastingharm for the victim," a question he said he "would not prejudge."
Nothing Left to Lose
Justice Burger, joined by Justice Rehnquist, filed a scathing dissenting opinion. Burger outlined Coker's criminal history, noting that he had raped and stabbed to death one young woman; kidnapped, raped, and beat nearly to death another young woman; and, after his escape from prison, raped, threatened withdeath, and kidnapped the woman from Waycross, Georgia. The ruling that Cokercould not be executed, Burger wrote, "prevents the State from imposing any effective punishment upon Coker for his latest rape . . . [and] bars Georgia from guaranteeing its citizens that they will suffer no further attacks by this habitual rapist." Burger agreed that he "accept[ed] that the Eighth Amendment's concept of disproportionality bars the death penalty for minor crimes. But rape is not a minor crime . . . " Rather, he wrote later in the opinion:
A rapist not only violates a victim's privacy and personal integrity, but inevitably causes serious psychological as well as physical harm in the process. The long-range effect upon the victim's life and health is likelyto be irreparable . . . it is destructive of the human personality . . . Tospeak blandly, as the plurality does, of rape victims who are "unharmed" or to classify the human outrage of rape, as does Mr. Justice Powell, in terms of"excessively brutal," versus "moderately brutal," takes too little account of the profound suffering the crime imposes upon the victims and their loved ones.
Burger concluded that "if murder is properly punishable by death, rape shouldbe also, if that is the considered judgment of the legislators."
Ginsburg Revisits Her Brief
Sixteen years later, during the confirmation hearings upon her appointment tothe Supreme Court, Ruth Bader Ginsburg discussed her amicus curiae brief in the case and her continued support for the decision reached in Coker v. Georgia. The death penalty for rape, she said:
Where there was no death or serious permanent injury apart from the obvious psychological injury--that . . . was disproportionate for this reason: The death penalty for rape historically was part of a view of woman as belonging to the man,as first her father's possession. If she were raped before marriage, she wasdamaged goods . . . And if she were a married woman and she were raped, again, she would be regarded as damaged goods.
We've seen . . . in many places in the world, where women in Bangladesh, for example, were discarded, were treated as worthless because they had been raped. And that was what Coker against Georgia came out of, and that's the whole thrust of [my] brief, that this was made punishable by death because man's property had been taken from him because of the rape of the woman .. .
Pressed by Senator Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), who was questioning her, toconcede that her brief reflected a view that the death penalty itself was unconstitutional, Ginsburg shot back:
. . . I urge you to read theentire . . . brief. I think you will find it to be exactly what I representedit to be. One of the reasons why rapes went unpunished, why women who had been raped suffered the indignity of having the police refuse to prosecute, wasstatutes of that order.
According to Linda Fairstein, director of the Sex Crimes Unit in the Manhattan district attorney's office, the conviction rate in rape cases has greatly increased during the 1980s and 1990s. In addition to the elimination of the death penalty for rape, other measures passed in the 1970s have helped to makethis possible. These include the elimination of requirements that a rape be witnessed and its victim use earnest resistance, as well as the passage of rape shield laws which prohibit testimony about a victim's prior sexual history.
Related Cases
- Robinson v. California, 370 U.S. 660 (1962).
- Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238 (1972).
- Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153 (1976).
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