Jurek v. Texas

The verdict of Jurek v. Texas confirmed that the death penalty could be invoked without the disruption of an individual's Eighth and Fourteenth Amendment rights. The most important consequence of this pertained to the amount of evidence presented to a jury. It was recognized that there was a significant difference between the death penalty and all other punishments--and therefore "a corresponding difference in the need for reliability in determining whether the death sentence is appropriately imposed in a particular case." This case maintained that the jury must be made aware of all relevant information concerning the defendant whose life is on the line; therefore all mitigating circumstances must be considered in capital-sentencing cases.