Home > Journals > Michigan Law Review > MLR FI > Vol. 105
Article Title
Abstract
Since Furman v. Georgia, the Supreme Court has sought to harmonize competing constitutional demands under Eighth Amendment rules regulat-ing the two-step eligibility and selection stages of the capital decision-making process. Furman’s demand for rationality and consistency requires that, at the eligibility stage, the sentencer’s discretion be limited and guided by clear and objective fact-based standards that rationally narrow the class of death-eligible defendants. The selection stage requires a determination of whether a specific death-eligible defendant actually deserves that punish-ment, as distinguished from other death-eligible defendants. Here, fundamental fairness and respect for the uniqueness of the individual are the cornerstones of the individualized sentencing requirements, which demand the sentencer consider and give effect to relevant mitigating evidence. The principles embodied in the individualized sentencing determination, as stated in Lockett v. Ohio, are rooted in the “fundamental respect for human-ity underlying the Eighth Amendment.” In Woodson v. North Carolina, the Court recognized that, because “death is different” from all other punish-ments, the Eighth Amendment requires a heightened degree of “reliability in the determination that death is an appropriate punishment in a specific case.”
Recommended Citation
Rebecca E. Woodman,
Legitimizing Error,
105
Mich. L. Rev. First Impressions
73
(2006).
Available at:
https://repository.law.umich.edu/mlr_fi/vol105/iss1/14
Included in
Constitutional Law Commons, Courts Commons, Criminal Law Commons, Criminal Procedure Commons, Supreme Court of the United States Commons