Coker v. Georgia

Many feminists celebrated this decision, believing the death penalty made juries less likely to convict rapists. They also thought it would discourage the old 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 Correctional Institution 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 forced her 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.