Together with No. 69-5030, Jackson v. Georgia, on certiorari to the same court, and No. 69-5031, Branch v. Texas, on certiorari to the Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas.

Imposition and carrying out of death penalty in these cases held to constitute cruel and unusual punishment in violation of Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments.

No. 69-5003, 225 Ga. 253, 167 S. E. 2d 628; No. 69-5030, 225 Ga. 790, 171 S. E. 2d 501; No. 69-5031, 447 S. W. 2d 932, reversed and remanded.

Anthony G. Amsterdam argued the cause for petitioner in No. 69-5003. With him on the brief were B. Clarence Mayfield, Michael Meltsner, Jack Greenberg, James M. Nabrit III, Jack Himmelstein, and Elizabeth B. DuBois. Mr. Greenberg argued the cause for petitioner in No. 69-5030. With him on the brief were Messrs. Meltsner, Amsterdam, Nabrit, Himmelstein, and Mrs. DuBois. Melvyn Carson Bruder argued the cause and filed a brief for petitioner in No. 69-5031.

Dorothy T. Beasley, Assistant Attorney General of Georgia, argued the cause for respondent in Nos. 69-5003 and 69-5030. With her on the briefs were Arthur K. Bolton, Attorney General, Harold N. Hill, Jr., Executive Assistant Attorney General, Courtney Wilder Stanton, Assistant Attorney General, and Andrew J. Ryan, Jr. Charles Alan Wright argued the cause for respondent in No. 69-5031. With him on the brief were Crawford C. Martin, Attorney General of Texas, Nola White, First Assistant Attorney General, Alfred Walker, Executive Assistant Attorney General, and Robert C. Flowers and Glenn R. Brown, Assistant Attorneys General. [408 U.S. 238, 239]  

Theodore L. Sendak, Attorney General, and David O. Givens, Deputy Attorney General, filed a brief for the State of Indiana as amicus curiae urging affirmance in No. 69-5003. Paul Raymond Stone filed a brief for the West Virginia Council of Churches et al. as amici curiae urging reversal in Nos. 69-5003 and 69-5030. John E. Havelock, Attorney General, filed a brief for the State of Alaska as amicus curiae in Nos. 69-5003 and 69-5030. Briefs of amici curiae in all three cases were filed by Gerald H. Gottlieb, Melvin L. Wulf, and Sanford Jay Rosen for the American Civil Liberties Union; by Leo Pfeffer for the Synagogue Council of America et al.; by Chauncey Eskridge, Mario G. Obledo, Leroy D. Clark, Nathaniel R. Jones, and Vernon Jordan for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People et al.; by Michael V. DiSalle for Edmund G. Brown et al.; and by Hilbert P. Zarky and Marc I. Hayutin for James V. Bennett et al.

PER CURIAM.

Petitioner in No. 69-5003 was convicted of murder in Georgia and was sentenced to death pursuant to Ga. Code Ann. 26-1005 (Supp. 1971) (effective prior to July 1, 1969). 225 Ga. 253, 167 S. E. 2d 628 (1969). Petitioner in No. 69-5030 was convicted of rape in Georgia and was sentenced to death pursuant to Ga. Code Ann. 26-1302 (Supp. 1971) (effective prior to July 1, 1969). 225 Ga. 790, 171 S. E. 2d 501 (1969). Petitioner in No. 69-5031 was convicted of rape in Texas and was sentenced to death pursuant to Tex. Penal Code, Art. 1189 (1961). 447 S. W. 2d 932 (Ct. Crim. App. 1969). Certiorari was granted limited to the following question: "Does the imposition and carrying out of the death penalty in [these cases] constitute cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments?" 403 U.S. 952 (1971). The Court holds that the imposition [408 U.S. 238, 240]   and carrying out of the death penalty in these cases constitute cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. The judgment in each case is therefore reversed insofar as it leaves undisturbed the death sentence imposed, and the cases are remanded for further proceedings.

So ordered.

MR. JUSTICE DOUGLAS, MR. JUSTICE BRENNAN, MR. JUSTICE STEWART, MR. JUSTICE WHITE, and MR. JUSTICE MARSHALL have filed separate opinions in support of the judgments. THE CHIEF JUSTICE, MR. JUSTICE BLACKMUN, MR. JUSTICE POWELL, and MR. JUSTICE REHNQUIST have filed separate dissenting opinions.

MR. JUSTICE DOUGLAS, concurring.

In these three cases the death penalty was imposed, one of them for murder, and two for rape. In each the determination of whether the penalty should be death or a lighter punishment was left by the State to the discretion of the judge or of the jury. In each of the three cases the trial was to a jury. They are here on petitions for certiorari which we granted limited to the question whether the imposition and execution of the death penalty constitute "cruel and unusual punishment" within the meaning of the Eighth Amendment as applied to the States by the Fourteenth. 1 I vote to vacate each judgment, believing that the exaction of the death penalty does violate the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. [408 U.S. 238, 241]  

That the requirements of due process ban cruel and unusual punishment is now settled. Louisiana ex rel. Francis v. Resweber, 329 U.S. 459, 463 , and 473-474 (Burton, J., dissenting); Robinson v. California, 370 U.S. 660, 667 . It is also settled that the proscription of cruel and unusual punishments forbids the judicial imposition of them as well as their imposition by the legislature. Weems v. United States, 217 U.S. 349, 378 -382.

Congressman Bingham, in proposing the Fourteenth Amendment, maintained that "the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States" as protected by the Fourteenth Amendment included protection against "cruel and unusual punishments:"

"[M]any instances of State injustice and oppression have already occurred in the State legislation of this Union, of flagrant violations of the guarantied privileges of citizens of the United States, for which the national Government furnished and could furnish by law no remedy whatever. Contrary to the express letter of your Constitution, `cruel and unusual punishments' have been inflicted under State laws within this Union upon citizens, not only for crimes committed, but for sacred duty done, for which and against which the Government of the United States had provided no remedy and could provide none." Cong. Globe, 39th Cong., 1st Sess., 2542.

 

Whether the privileges and immunities route is followed, or the due process route, the result is the same.

It has been assumed in our decisions that punishment by death is not cruel, unless the manner of execution can be said to be inhuman and barbarous. In re Kemmler, 136 U.S. 436, 447 . It is also said in our opinions [408 U.S. 238, 242]   that the proscription of cruel and unusual punishments "is not fastened to the obsolete but may acquire meaning as public opinion becomes enlightened by a humane justice." Weems v. United States, supra, at 378. A like statement was made in Trop v. Dulles, 356 U.S. 86, 101 , that the Eighth Amendment "must draw its meaning from the evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society."

The generality of a law inflicting capital punishment is one thing. What may be 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 of his race, religion, wealth, social position, or class, or if it is imposed under a procedure that gives room for the play of such prejudices.

There is evidence that the provision of the English Bill of Rights of 1689, from which the language of the Eighth Amendment was taken, was concerned primarily with selective or irregular application of harsh penalties and that its aim was to forbid arbitrary and discriminatory penalties of a severe nature: 2  

"Following the Norman conquest of England in 1066, the old system of penalties, which ensured equality between crime and punishment, suddenly disappeared. By the time systematic judicial records were kept, its demise was almost complete. With the exception of certain grave crimes for which the punishment was death or outlawry, the arbitrary fine was replaced by a discretionary [408 U.S. 238, 243]   amercement. Although amercement's discretionary character allowed the circumstances of each case to be taken into account and the level of cash penalties to be decreased or increased accordingly, the amercement presented an opportunity for excessive or oppressive fines.

 

"The problem of excessive amercements became so prevalent that three chapters of the Magna Carta were devoted to their regulation. Maitland said of Chapter 14 that `very likely there was no clause in the Magna Carta more grateful to the mass of the people.' Chapter 14 clearly stipulated as fundamental law a prohibition of excessiveness in punishments:

 

"`A free man shall not be amerced for a trivial offence, except in accordance with the degree of the offence; and for a serious offence he shall be amerced according to its gravity, saving his livelihood; and a merchant likewise, saving his merchandise; in the same way a villein shall be amerced saving his wainage; if they fall into our mercy. And none of the aforesaid amercements shall be imposed except by the testimony of reputable men of the neighborhood.'"

 

The English Bill of Rights, enacted December 16, 1689, stated that "excessive bail ought not to be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted." 3 These were the words chosen for our Eighth Amendment. A like provision had been in Virginia's Constitution of 1776 4 and in the constitutions [408 U.S. 238, 244]   of seven other States. 5 The Northwest Ordinance, enacted under the Articles of Confederation, included a prohibition of cruel and unusual punishments. 6 But the debates of the First Congress on the Bill of Rights throw little light on its intended meaning. All that appears is the following: 7  

"Mr. SMITH, of South Carolina, objected to the words `nor cruel and unusual punishments;' the import of them being too indefinite.

 

"Mr. LIVERMORE: The clause seems to express a great deal of humanity, on which account I have no objection to it; but as it seems to have no meaning in it, I do not think it necessary. What is meant by the terms excessive bail? Who are to be the judges? What is understood by excessive fines? It lies with the court to determine. No cruel and unusual punishment is to be inflicted; it is sometimes necessary to hang a man, villains often deserve whipping, and perhaps having their ears cut off; but are we in future to be prevented from inflicting these punishments because they are cruel? If a more lenient mode of correcting vice and deterring others from the commission of it could be invented, it would be very prudent in the Legislature to adopt it; but until we have some security that this will be done, we ought not to be restrained from making necessary laws by any declaration of this kind."

 

The words "cruel and unusual" certainly include penalties [408 U.S. 238, 245]   that are barbaric. But the words, at least when read in light of the English proscription against selective and irregular use of penalties, suggest that it is "cruel and unusual" to apply the death penalty - or any other penalty - selectively to minorities whose numbers are few, who are outcasts of society, and who are unpopular, but whom society is willing to see suffer though it would not countenance general application of the same penalty across the board. 8 Judge Tuttle, indeed, made abundantly clear in Novak v. Beto, 453 F.2d 661, 673-679 (CA5) (concurring in part and dissenting in part), that solitary confinement may at times be "cruel and unusual" punishment. Cf. Ex parte Medley, 134 U.S. 160 ; Brooks v. Florida, 389 U.S. 413 .

The Court in McGautha v. California, 402 U.S. 183, 198 , noted that in this country there was almost from the beginning a "rebellion against the common-law rule imposing a mandatory death sentence on all convicted [408 U.S. 238, 246]   murderers." The first attempted remedy was to restrict the death penalty to defined offenses such as "premeditated" murder. 9 Ibid. But juries "took the [408 U.S. 238, 247]   law into their own hands" and refused to convict on the capital offense. Id., at 199.

"In order to meet the problem of jury nullification, legislatures did not try, as before, to refine further the definition of capital homicides. Instead they adopted the method of forthrightly granting juries the discretion which they had been exercising in fact." Ibid.

 

The Court concluded: "In light of history, experience, and the present limitations of human knowledge, we find it quite impossible to say that committing to the untrammeled discretion of the jury the power to pronounce life or death in capital cases is offensive to anything in the Constitution." Id., at 207.

The Court refused to find constitutional dimensions in the argument that those who exercise their discretion to send a person to death should be given standards by which that discretion should be exercised. Id., at 207-208.

A recent witness at the Hearings before Subcommittee No. 3 of the House Committee on the Judiciary, 92d Cong., 2d Sess., Ernest van den Haag, testifying on H. R. 8414 et al., 10 stated:

"Any penalty, a fine, imprisonment or the death penalty could be unfairly or unjustly applied. The [408 U.S. 238, 248]   vice in this case is not in the penalty but in the process by which it is inflicted. It is unfair to inflict unequal penalties on equally guilty parties, or on any innocent parties, regardless of what the penalty is." Id., at 116-117. (Emphasis supplied.)

 

But those who advance that argument overlook McGautha, supra.

We are now imprisoned in the McGautha holding. Indeed the seeds of the present cases are in McGautha. Juries (or judges, as the case may be) have practically untrammeled discretion to let an accused live or insist that he die. 11   [408 U.S. 238, 249]  

Mr. Justice Field, dissenting in O'Neil v. Vermont, 144 U.S. 323, 340 , said, "The State may, indeed, make the drinking of one drop of liquor an offence to be punished by imprisonment, but it would be an unheard-of cruelty if it should count the drops in a single glass and make thereby a thousand offences, and thus extend the punishment for drinking the single glass of liquor to an imprisonment of almost indefinite duration." What the legislature may not do for all classes uniformly and systematically, a judge or jury may not do for a class that prejudice sets apart from the community.

There is increasing recognition of the fact that the basic theme of equal protection is implicit in "cruel and unusual" punishments. "A penalty . . . should be considered `unusually' imposed if it is administered arbitrarily or discriminatorily." 12 The same authors add that "[t]he extreme rarity with which applicable death penalty provisions are put to use raises a strong inference of arbitrariness." 13 The President's Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice recently concluded: 14  

"Finally there is evidence that the imposition of the death sentence and the exercise of dispensing power by the courts and the executive follow discriminatory patterns. The death sentence is disproportionately imposed and carried out on the [408 U.S. 238, 250]   poor, the Negro, and the members of unpopular groups."

 

A study of capital cases in Texas from 1924 to 1968 reached the following conclusions: 15  

"Application of the death penalty is unequal: most of those executed were poor, young, and ignorant.

 

. . . . . [408 U.S. 238, 251]  

 

"Seventy-five of the 460 cases involved codefendants, who, under Texas law, were given separate trials. In several instances where a white and a Negro were co-defendants, the white was sentenced to life imprisonment or a term of years, and the Negro was given the death penalty.

 

"Another ethnic disparity is found in the type of sentence imposed for rape. The Negro convicted of rape is far more likely to get the death penalty than a term sentence, whereas whites and Latins are far more likely to get a term sentence than the death penalty."

 

Warden Lewis E. Lawes of Sing Sing said: 16  

"Not only does capital punishment fail in its justification, but no punishment could be invented with so many inherent defects. It is an unequal punishment in the way it is applied to the rich and to the poor. The defendant of wealth and position never goes to the electric chair or to the gallows. Juries do not intentionally favor the rich, the law is theoretically impartial, but the defendant with ample means is able to have his case presented with every favorable aspect, while the poor defendant often has a lawyer assigned by the court. Sometimes such assignment is considered part of political patronage; usually the lawyer assigned has had no experience whatever in a capital case."

 

Former Attorney General Ramsey Clark has said, "It is the poor, the sick, the ignorant, the powerless and the hated who are executed." 17 One searches our chronicles [408 U.S. 238, 252]   in vain for the execution of any member of the affluent strata of this society. The Leopolds and Loebs are given prison terms, not sentenced to death.

Jackson, a black, convicted of the rape of a white woman, was 21 years old. A court-appointed psychiatrist said that Jackson was of average education and average intelligence, that he was not an imbecile, or schizophrenic, or psychotic, that his traits were the product of environmental influences, and that he was competent to stand trial. Jackson had entered the house after the husband left for work. He held scissors against the neck of the wife, demanding money. She could find none and a struggle ensued for the scissors, a battle which she lost; and she was then raped, Jackson keeping the scissors pressed against her neck. While there did not appear to be any long-term traumatic impact on the victim, she was bruised and abrased in the struggle but was not hospitalized. Jackson was a convict who had escaped from a work gang in the area, a result of a three-year sentence for auto theft. He was at large for three days and during that time had committed several other offenses - burglary, auto theft, and assault and battery.

Furman, a black, killed a householder while seeking to enter the home at night. Furman shot the deceased through a closed door. He was 26 years old and had finished the sixth grade in school. Pending trial, he was committed to the Georgia Central State Hospital for a psychiatric examination on his plea of insanity tendered by court-appointed counsel. The superintendent reported that a unanimous staff diagnostic conference had concluded "that this patient should retain his present diagnosis of Mental Deficiency, Mild to Moderate, with Psychotic Episodes associated with Convulsive Disorder." The physicians agreed that "at present the patient is not psychotic, but he is not capable of cooperating with his counsel in the preparation of his [408 U.S. 238, 253]   defense"; and the staff believed "that he is in need of further psychiatric hospitalization and treatment."

Later, the superintendent reported that the staff diagnosis was Mental Deficiency, Mild to Moderate, with Psychotic Episodes associated with Convulsive Disorder. He concluded, however, that Furman was "not psychotic at present, knows right from wrong and is able to cooperate with his counsel in preparing his defense."

Branch, a black, entered the rural home of a 65-year-old widow, a white, while she slept and raped her, holding his arm against her throat. Thereupon he demanded money and for 30 minutes or more the widow searched for money, finding little. As he left, Jackson said if the widow told anyone what happened, he would return and kill her. The record is barren of any medical or psychiatric evidence showing injury to her as a result of Branch's attack.

He had previously been convicted of felony theft and found to be a borderline mental deficient and well below the average IQ of Texas prison inmates. He had the equivalent of five and a half years of grade school education. He had a "dull intelligence" and was in the lowest fourth percentile of his class.

We cannot say from facts disclosed in these records that these defendants were sentenced to death because they were black. Yet our task is not restricted to an effort to divine what motives impelled these death penalties. Rather, we deal with a system of law and of justice that leaves to the uncontrolled discretion of judges or juries the determination whether defendants committing these crimes should die or be imprisoned. Under these laws no standards govern the selection of the penalty. People live or die, dependent on the whim of one man or of 12.

Irving Brant has given a detailed account of the Bloody Assizes, the reign of terror that occupied the [408 U.S. 238, 254]   closing years of the rule of Charles II and the opening years of the regime of James II (the Lord Chief Justice was George Jeffreys):

"Nobody knows how many hundreds of men, innocent or of unproved guilt, Jeffreys sent to their deaths in the pseudo trials that followed Mon-mouth's feeble and stupid attempt to seize the throne. When the ordeal ended, scores had been executed and 1,260 were awaiting the hangman in three counties. To be absent from home during the uprising was evidence of guilt. Mere death was considered much too mild for the villagers and farmers rounded up in these raids. The directions to a high sheriff were to provide an ax, a cleaver, `a furnace or cauldron to boil their heads and quarters, and soil to boil therewith, half a bushel to each traitor, and tar to tar them with, and a sufficient number of spears and poles to fix their heads and quarters' along the highways. One could have crossed a good part of northern England by their guidance.

 

"The story of The Bloody Assizes, widely known to Americans, helped to place constitutional limitations on the crime of treason and to produce a bar against cruel and unusual punishments. But in the polemics that led to the various guarantees of freedom, it had no place compared with the tremendous thrust of the trial and execution of Sidney. The hundreds of judicial murders committed by Jeffreys and his fellow judges were totally inconceivable in a free American republic, but any American could imagine himself in Sidney's place - executed for putting on paper, in his closet, words that later on came to express the basic principles of republican government. Unless barred by fundamental law, the legal rulings that permitted this [408 U.S. 238, 255]   result could easily be employed against any person whose political opinions challenged the party in power." The Bill of Rights 154-155 (1965).

 

Those who wrote the Eighth Amendment knew what price their forebears had paid for a system based, not on equal justice, but on discrimination. In those days the target was not the blacks or the poor, but the dissenters, those who opposed absolutism in government, who struggled for a parliamentary regime, and who opposed governments' recurring efforts to foist a particular religion on the people. Id., at 155-163. But the tool of capital punishment was used with vengeance against the opposition and those unpopular with the regime. One cannot read this history without realizing that the desire for equality was reflected in the ban against "cruel and unusual punishments" contained in the Eighth Amendment.

In a Nation committed to equal protection of the laws there is no permissible "caste" aspect 18 of law enforcement. Yet we know that the discretion of judges and juries in imposing the death penalty enables the penalty to be selectively applied, feeding prejudices against the accused if he is poor and despised, and lacking political clout, or if he is a member of a suspect or unpopular minority, and saving those who by social position may be in a more protected position. In ancient Hindu law a Brahman was exempt from capital punishment, 19 and under that law, "[g]enerally, in the law books, punishment increased in severity as social status diminished." 20 We have, I fear, taken in practice the same position, partially as a result of making the death penalty [408 U.S. 238, 256]   discretionary and partially as a result of the ability of the rich to purchase the services of the most respected and most resourceful legal talent in the Nation.

The high service rendered by the "cruel and unusual" punishment clause of the Eighth Amendment is to require legislatures to write penal laws that are evenhanded, nonselective, and nonarbitrary, and to require judges to see to it that general laws are not applied sparsely, selectively, and spottily to unpopular groups.

A law that stated that anyone making more than $50,000 would be exempt from the death penalty would plainly fall, as would a law that in terms said that blacks, those who never went beyond the fifth grade in school, those who made less than $3,000 a year, or those who were unpopular or unstable should be the only people executed. A law which in the overall view reaches that result in practice 21 has no more sanctity than a law which in terms provides the same.

Thus, these discretionary statutes are unconstitutional [408 U.S. 238, 257]   in their operation. They are pregnant with discrimination and discrimination is an ingredient not compatible with the idea of equal protection of the laws that is implicit in the ban on "cruel and unusual" punishments.

Any law which is nondiscriminatory on its face may be applied in such a way as to violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U.S. 356 . Such conceivably might be the fate of a mandatory death penalty, where equal or lesser sentences were imposed on the elite, a harsher one on the minorities or members of the lower castes. Whether a mandatory death penalty would otherwise be constitutional is a question I do not reach.

I concur in the judgments of the Court.

Footnotes

[ Footnote 1 ] The opinion of the Supreme Court of Georgia affirming Furman's conviction of murder and sentence of death is reported in 225 Ga. 253, 167 S. E. 2d 628, and its opinion affirming Jackson's conviction of rape and sentence of death is reported in 225 Ga. 790, 171 S. E. 2d 501. The conviction of Branch of rape and the sentence of death were affirmed by the Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas and reported in 447 S. W. 2d 932.

[ Footnote 2 ] Granucci, "Nor Cruel and Unusual Punishments Inflicted:" The Original Meaning, 57 Calif. L. Rev. 839, 845-846 (1969).

[ Footnote 3 ] 1 W. & M., Sess. 2, c. 2; 8 English Historical Documents, 1660-1714, p. 122 (A. Browning ed. 1953).

[ Footnote 4 ] 7 F. Thorpe, Federal & State Constitutions 3813 (1909).

[ Footnote 5 ] Delaware, Maryland, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and South Carolina. 1 Thorpe, supra, n. 4, at 569; 3 id., at 1688, 1892; 4 id., at 2457; 5 id., at 2788, 3101; 6 id., at 3264.

[ Footnote 6 ] Set out in 1 U.S.C. XXXIX-XLI.

[ Footnote 7 ] 1 Annals of Cong. 754 (1789).

[ Footnote 8 ] "When in respect of any class of offenses the difficulty of obtaining convictions is at all general in England, we may hold it as an axiom, that the law requires amendment. Such conduct in juries is the silent protest of the people against its undue severity. This was strongly exemplified in the case of prosecutions for the forgery of bank-notes, when it was a capital felony. It was in vain that the charge was proved. Juries would not condemn men to the gallows for an offense of which the punishment was out of all proportion to the crime; and as they could not mitigate the sentence they brought in verdicts of Not Guilty. The consequence was, that the law was changed; and when secondary punishments were substituted for the penalty of death, a forger had no better chance of an acquittal than any other criminal. Thus it is that the power which juries possess of refusing to put the law in force has, in the words of Lord John Russell, `been the cause of amending many bad laws which the judges would have administered with professional bigotry, and above all, it has this important and useful consequence, that laws totally repugnant to the feelings of the community for which they are made, can not long prevail in England.'" W. Forsyth, History of Trial by Jury 367-368 (2d ed. 1971).

[ Footnote 9 ] This trend was not universally applauded. In the early 1800's, England had a law that made it possible to impose the death sentence for stealing five shillings or more. 3 W. & M., c. 9, 1. When a bill for abolishing that penalty (finally enacted in 1827, 7 & 8 Geo. 4, c. 27) was before the House of Lords in 1813, Lord Ellenborough said:

"If your Lordships look to the particular measure now under consideration, can it, I ask, be seriously maintained, that the most exemplary punishment, and the best suited to prevent the commission of this crime, ought not to be a punishment which might in some cases be inflicted? How, but by the enactments of the law now sought to be repealed, are the cottages of industrious poverty protected? What other security has a poor peasant, when he and his wife leave their home for their daily labours, that on their return their few articles of furniture or of clothes which they possess besides those which they carry on their backs, will be safe? . . . [B]y the enacting of the punishment of death, and leaving it to the discretion of the Crown to inflict that punishment or not, as the circumstances of the case may require, I am satisfied, and I am much mistaken if your Lordships are not satisfied, that this object is attained with the least possible expenditure. That the law is, as it has been termed, a bloody law, I can by no means admit. Can there be a better test than by a consideration of the number of persons who have been executed for offences of the description contained in the present Bill? Your Lordships are told, what is extremely true, that this number is very small; and this very circumstance is urged as a reason for a repeal of the law; but, before your Lordships are induced to consent to such repeal, I beg to call to your consideration the number of innocent persons who might have been plundered of their property or destroyed by midnight murderers, if the law now sought to be repealed had not been in existence: - a law upon which all the retail trade of this commercial country depends; and which I for one will not consent to be put in jeopardy." Debate in House of Lords, Apr. 2, 1813, pp. 23-24 (Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, & Brown, Paternoster-Row, London 1816).

 

[ Footnote 10 ] H. R. 3243, 92d Cong., 1st Sess., introduced by Cong. Celler, would abolish all executions by the United States or by any State.

H. R. 8414, 92d Cong., 1st Sess., introduced by Cong. Celler, would provide an interim stay of all executions by the United States or by any State and contains the following proposed finding:

"Congress hereby finds that there exists serious question -

 

"(a) whether the infliction of the death penalty amounts to cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the eighth and fourteenth amendments to the Constitution; and

 

"(b) whether the death penalty is inflicted discriminatorily upon [408 U.S. 238, 248]   members of racial minorities, in violation of the fourteenth amendment to the Constitution,

 

"and, in either case, whether Congress should exercise its authority under section 5 of the fourteenth amendment to prohibit the use of the death penalty."

 

There is the naive view that capital punishment as "meted out in our courts, is the antithesis of barbarism." See Henry Paolucci, New York Times, May 27, 1972, p. 29, col. 1. But the Leopolds and Loebs, the Harry Thaws, the Dr. Sheppards and the Dr. Finchs of our society are never executed, only those in the lower strata, only those who are members of an unpopular minority or the poor and despised.

[ Footnote 11 ] The tension between our decision today and McGautha highlights, in my view, the correctness of MR. JUSTICE BRENNAN'S dissent in that case, which I joined. 402 U.S., at 248 . I should think that if the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments prohibit the imposition of the death penalty on petitioners because they are "among a capriciously selected random handful upon whom the sentence of death has in fact been imposed," opinion of MR. JUSTICE STEWART, post, at 309-310, or because "there is no meaningful basis for distinguishing the few cases in which [the death penalty] is imposed from the many cases in which it is not," opinion of MR. JUSTICE WHITE, post, at 313, statements with which I am in complete agreement - then the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment would render unconstitutional "capital sentencing procedures that are purposely [408 U.S. 238, 249]   constructed to allow the maximum possible variation from one case to the next, and [that] provide no mechanism to prevent that consciously maximized variation from reflecting merely random or arbitrary choice." McGautha v. California, 402 U.S. 183, 248 (BRENNAN, J., dissenting).

[ Footnote 12 ] Goldberg & Dershowitz, Declaring the Death Penalty Unconstitutional, 83 Harv. L. Rev. 1773, 1790.

[ Footnote 13 ] Id., at 1792.

[ Footnote 14 ] The Challenge of Crime in a Free Society 143 (1967).

[ Footnote 15 ] Koeninger, Capital Punishment in Texas, 1924-1968, 15 Crime & Delin. 132, 141 (1969).

In H. Bedau, The Death Penalty in America 474 (1967 rev. ed.), it is stated:

RACE OF THE OFFENDER BY FINAL DISPOSITION

 

Final Negro White Total Disposition N % N % N % Executed 130 88.4 210 79.8 340 82.9 Commuted 17 11.6 53 20.2 70 17.1 Total 147 100.0 263 100.0 410 100.0

X2.=4.33; P less than .05. (For discussion of statistical symbols, see Bedau, supra, at 469.)

"Although there may be a host of factors other than race involved in this frequency distribution, something more than chance has operated over the years to produce this racial difference. On the basis of this study it is not possible to indict the judicial and other public processes prior to the death row as responsible for the association between Negroes and higher frequency of executions; nor is it entirely correct to assume that from the time of their appearance on death row Negroes are discriminated against by the Pardon Board. Too many unknown or presently immeasurable factors prevent our making definitive statements about the relationship. Nevertheless, because the Negro/high-execution association is statistically present, some suspicion of racial discrimination can hardly be avoided. If such a relationship had not appeared, this kind of suspicion could have been allayed; the existence of the relationship, although not `proving' differential bias by the Pardon Boards over the years since 1914, strongly suggests that such bias has existed."

 

The latter was a study in Pennsylvania of people on death row between 1914 and 1958, made by Wolfgang, Kelly, & Nolde and printed [408 U.S. 238, 251]   in 53 J. Crim. L. C. & P. S. 301 (1962). And see Hartung, Trends in the Use of Capital Punishment, 284 Annals 8, 14-17 (1952).

[ Footnote 16 ] Life and Death in Sing Sing 155-160 (1928).

[ Footnote 17 ] Crime in America 335 (1970).

[ Footnote 18 ] See Johnson, The Negro and Crime, 217 Annals 93 (1941).

[ Footnote 19 ] See J. Spellman, Political Theory of Ancient India 112 (1964).

[ Footnote 20 ] C. Drekmeier, Kingship and Community in Early India 233 (1962).

[ Footnote 21 ] Cf. B. Prettyman, Jr., Death and The Supreme Court 296-297 (1961).

"The disparity of representation in capital cases raises doubts about capital punishment itself, which has been abolished in only nine states. If a James Avery [ 345 U.S. 559 ] can be saved from electrocution because his attorney made timely objection to the selection of a jury by the use of yellow and white tickets, while an Aubry Williams [ 349 U.S. 375 ] can be sent to his death by a jury selected in precisely the same manner, we are imposing our most extreme penalty in an uneven fashion.

 

"The problem of proper representation is not a problem of money, as some have claimed, but of a lawyer's ability, and it is not true that only the rich have able lawyers. Both the rich and the poor usually are well represented - the poor because more often than not the best attorneys are appointed to defend them. It is the middle-class defendant, who can afford to hire an attorney but not a very good one, who is at a disadvantage. Certainly William Fikes [ 352 U.S. 191 ], despite the anomalous position in which he finds himself [408 U.S. 238, 257]   today, received as effective and intelligent a defense from his court-appointed attorneys as he would have received from an attorney his family had scraped together enough money to hire.

 

"And it is not only a matter of ability. An attorney must be found who is prepared to spend precious hours - the basic commodity he has to sell - on a case that seldom fully compensates him and often brings him no fee at all. The public has no conception of the time and effort devoted by attorneys to indigent cases. And in a first-degree case, the added responsibility of having a man's life depend upon the outcome exacts a heavy toll."

 

MR. JUSTICE BRENNAN, concurring.

The question presented in these cases is whether death is today a punishment for crime that is "cruel and unusual" and consequently, by virtue of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments, beyond the power of the State to inflict. 1   [408 U.S. 238, 258]  

Almost a century ago, this Court observed that "[d]ifficulty would attend the effort to define with exactness the extent of the constitutional provision which provides that cruel and unusual punishments shall not be inflicted." Wilkerson v. Utah, 99 U.S. 130, 135 -136 (1879). Less than 15 years ago, it was again noted that "[t]he exact scope of the constitutional phrase `cruel and unusual' has not been detailed by this Court." Trop v. Dulles, 356 U.S. 86, 99 (1958). Those statements remain true today. The Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause, like the other great clauses of the Constitution, is not susceptible of precise definition. Yet we know that the values and ideals it embodies are basic to our scheme of government. And we know also that the Clause imposes upon this Court the duty, when the issue is properly presented, to determine the constitutional validity of a challenged punishment, whatever that punishment may be. In these cases, "[t]hat issue confronts us, and the task of resolving it is inescapably ours." Id., at 103.

We have very little evidence of the Framers' intent in including the Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause among those restraints upon the new Government enumerated in the Bill of Rights. The absence of such a restraint from the body of the Constitution was alluded to, so far as we now know, in the debates of only two of the state ratifying conventions. In the Massachusetts convention, Mr. Holmes protested:

"What gives an additional glare of horror to these gloomy circumstances is the consideration, that Congress have to ascertain, point out, and determine, [408 U.S. 238, 259]   what kind of punishments shall be inflicted on persons convicted of crimes. They are nowhere restrained from inventing the most cruel and unheard-of punishments, and annexing them to crimes; and there is no constitutional check on them, but that racks and gibbets may be amongst the most mild instruments of their discipline." 2 J. Elliot's Debates 111 (2d ed. 1876).

 

Holmes' fear that Congress would have unlimited power to prescribe punishments for crimes was echoed by Patrick Henry at the Virginia convention:

". . . Congress, from their general powers, may fully go into business of human legislation. They may legislate, in criminal cases, from treason to the lowest offence - petty larceny. They may define crimes and prescribe punishments. In the definition of crimes, I trust they will be directed by what wise representatives ought to be governed by. But when we come to punishments, no latitude ought to be left, nor dependence put on the virtue of representatives. What says our [Virginia] bill of rights? - `that excessive bail ought not to be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.' Are you not, therefore, now calling on those gentlemen who are to compose Congress, to . . . define punishments without this control? Will they find sentiments there similar to this bill of rights? You let them loose; you do more - you depart from the genius of your country. . . .

 

"In this business of legislation, your members of Congress will loose the restriction of not imposing excessive fines, demanding excessive bail, and inflicting cruel and unusual punishments. These are prohibited by your [Virginia] declaration of rights. What has distinguished our ancestors? - [408 U.S. 238, 260]   That they would not admit of tortures, or cruel and barbarous punishment." 3 id., at 447. 2  

 

These two statements shed some light on what the Framers meant by "cruel and unusual punishments." Holmes referred to "the most cruel and unheard-of punishments," Henry to "tortures, or cruel and barbarous punishment." It does not follow, however, that the Framers were exclusively concerned with prohibiting torturous punishments. Holmes and Henry were objecting to the absence of a Bill of Rights, and they cited to support their objections the unrestrained legislative power to prescribe punishments for crimes. Certainly we may suppose that they invoked the specter of the most drastic punishments a legislature might devise.

In addition, it is quite clear that Holmes and Henry focused wholly upon the necessity to restrain the legislative power. Because they recognized "that Congress have to ascertain, point out, and determine, what kinds of punishments shall be inflicted on persons convicted of crimes," they insisted that Congress must be limited in its power to punish. Accordingly, they [408 U.S. 238, 261]   called for a "constitutional check" that would ensure that "when we come to punishments, no latitude ought to be left, nor dependence put on the virtue of representatives." 3  

The only further evidence of the Framers' intent appears from the debates in the First Congress on the adoption of the Bill of Rights. 4 As the Court noted in Weems v. United States, 217 U.S. 349, 368 (1910), [408 U.S. 238, 262]   the Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause "received very little debate." The extent of the discussion, by two opponents of the Clause in the House of Representatives, was this:

"Mr. SMITH, of South Carolina, objected to the words `nor cruel and unusual punishments;' the import of them being too indefinite.

 

"Mr. LIVERMORE. - The [Eighth Amendment] seems to express a great deal of humanity, on which account I have no objection to it; but as it seems to have no meaning in it, I do not think it necessary. . . . No cruel and unusual punishment is to be inflicted; it is sometimes necessary to hang a man, villains often deserve whipping, and perhaps having their ears cut off; but are we in future to be prevented from inflicting these punishments because they are cruel? If a more lenient mode of correcting vice and deterring others from the commission of it could be invented, it would be very prudent in the Legislature to adopt it; but until we have some security that this will be done, we ought not to be restrained from making necessary laws by any declaration of this kind.

 

"The question was put on the [Eighth Amendment], and it was agreed to by a considerable majority." 1 Annals of Cong. 754 (1789). 5  

 

Livermore thus agreed with Holmes and Henry that the Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause imposed a limitation upon the legislative power to prescribe punishments. [408 U.S. 238, 263]   However, in contrast to Holmes and Henry, who were supporting the Clause, Livermore, opposing it, did not refer to punishments that were considered barbarous and torturous. Instead, he objected that the Clause might someday prevent the legislature from inflicting what were then quite common and, in his view, "necessary" punishments - death, whipping, and earcropping. 6 The only inference to be drawn from Livermore's statement is that the "considerable majority" was prepared to run that risk. No member of the House rose to reply that the Clause was intended merely to prohibit torture.

Several conclusions thus emerge from the history of the adoption of the Clause. We know that the Framers' concern was directed specifically at the exercise of legislative power. They included in the Bill of Rights a prohibition upon "cruel and unusual punishments" precisely because the legislature would otherwise have had the unfettered power to prescribe punishments for crimes. Yet we cannot now know exactly what the Framers thought "cruel and unusual punishments" were. Certainly they intended to ban torturous punishments, but the available evidence does not support the further conclusion that only torturous punishments were to be outlawed. As Livermore's comments demonstrate, the Framers were well aware that the reach of the Clause was not limited to the proscription of unspeakable atrocities. Nor did they intend simply to forbid punishments considered "cruel and unusual" at the time. The "import" of the Clause is, indeed, "indefinite," and for good reason. A constitutional provision "is enacted, it is true, from an experience of evils, but its general language [408 U.S. 238, 264]   should not, therefore, be necessarily confined to the form that evil had theretofore taken. Time works changes, brings into existence new conditions and purposes. Therefore a principle to be vital must be capable of wider application than the mischief which gave it birth." Weems v. United States, 217 U.S., at 373 .

It was almost 80 years before this Court had occasion to refer to the Clause. See Pervear v. The Commonwealth, 5 Wall. 475, 479-480 (1867). These early cases, as the Court pointed out in Weems v. United States, supra, at 369, did not undertake to provide "an exhaustive definition" of "cruel and unusual punishments." Most of them proceeded primarily by "looking backwards for examples by which to fix the meaning of the clause," id., at 377, concluding simply that a punishment would be "cruel and unusual" if it were similar to punishments considered "cruel and unusual" at the time the Bill of Rights was adopted. 7 In Wilkerson v. Utah, 99 U.S., at 136 , for instance, the Court found it "safe to affirm that punishments of torture . . . and all others in the same line of unnecessary cruelty, are forbidden." The "punishments of torture," which the Court labeled "atrocities," were cases where the criminal "was embowelled alive, beheaded, and quartered," and cases "of public dissection . . . and burning alive." Id., at 135. Similarly, in In re Kemmler, [408 U.S. 238, 265]   136 U.S. 436, 446 (1890), the Court declared that "if the punishment prescribed for an offence against the laws of the State were manifestly cruel and unusual, as burning at the stake, crucifixion, breaking on the wheel, or the like, it would be the duty of the courts to adjudge such penalties to be within the constitutional prohibition." The Court then observed, commenting upon the passage just quoted from Wilkerson v. Utah, supra, and applying the "manifestly cruel and unusual" test, that "[p]unishments are cruel when they involve torture or a lingering death; but the punishment of death is not cruel, within the meaning of that word as used in the Constitution. It implies there something inhuman and barbarous, something more than the mere extinguishment of life." 136 U.S., at 447 .

Had this "historical" interpretation of the Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause prevailed, the Clause would have been effectively read out of the Bill of Rights. As the Court noted in Weems v. United States, supra, at 371, this interpretation led Story to conclude "that the provision `would seem to be wholly unnecessary in a free government, since it is scarcely possible that any department of such a government should authorize or justify such atrocious conduct.'" And Cooley in his book, Constitutional Limitations, said the Court, "apparently in a struggle between the effect to be given to ancient examples and the inconsequence of a dread of them in these enlightened times, . . . hesitate[d] to advance definite views." Id., at 375. The result of a judicial application of this interpretation was not surprising. A state court, for example, upheld the constitutionality of the whipping post: "In comparison with the `barbarities of quartering, hanging in chains, castration, etc.,' it was easily reduced to insignificance." Id., at 377. [408 U.S. 238, 266]  

But this Court in Weems decisively repudiated the "historical" interpretation of the Clause. The Court, returning to the intention of the Framers, "rel[ied] on the conditions which existed when the Constitution was adopted." And the Framers knew "that government by the people instituted by the Constitution would not imitate the conduct of arbitrary monarchs. The abuse of power might, indeed, be apprehended, but not that it would be manifested in provisions or practices which would shock the sensibilities of men." Id., at 375. The Clause, then, guards against "[t]he abuse of power"; contrary to the implications in Wilkerson v. Utah, supra, and In re Kemmler, supra, the prohibition of the Clause is not "confine[d] . . . to such penalties and punishment as were inflicted by the Stuarts." 217 U.S., at 372 . Although opponents of the Bill of Rights "felt sure that the spirit of liberty could be trusted, and that its ideals would be represented, not debased, by legislation," ibid., the Framers disagreed:

"[Patrick] Henry and those who believed as he did would take no chances. Their predominant political impulse was distrust of power, and they insisted on constitutional limitations against its abuse. But surely they intended more than to register a fear of the forms of abuse that went out of practice with the Stuarts. Surely, their [jealousy] of power had a saner justification than that. They were men of action, practical and sagacious, not beset with vain imagining, and it must have come to them that there could be exercises of cruelty by laws other than those which inflicted bodily pain or mutilation. With power in a legislature great, if not unlimited, to give criminal character to the actions of men, with power unlimited to fix terms of imprisonment with what accompaniments they [408 U.S. 238, 267]   might, what more potent instrument of cruelty could be put into the hands of power? And it was believed that power might be tempted to cruelty. This was the motive of the clause, and if we are to attribute an intelligent providence to its advocates we cannot think that it was intended to prohibit only practices like the [Stuarts',] or to prevent only an exact repetition of history. We cannot think that the possibility of a coercive cruelty being exercised through other forms of punishment was overlooked." Id., at 372-373.

 

The Court in Weems thus recognized that this "restraint upon legislatures" possesses an "expansive and vital character" that is "`essential . . . to the rule of law and the maintenance of individual freedom.'" Id., at 376-377. Accordingly, the responsibility lies with the courts to make certain that the prohibition of the Clause is enforced. 8 Referring to cases in which "prominence [was] given to the power of the legislature to define crimes and their punishment," the Court said:

"We concede the power in most of its exercises. We disclaim the right to assert a judgment [408 U.S. 238, 268]   against that of the legislature of the expediency of the laws or the right to oppose the judicial power to the legislative power to define crimes and fix their punishment, unless that power encounters in its exercise a constitutional prohibition. In such case not our discretion but our legal duty, strictly defined and imperative in its direction, is invoked." Id., at 378. 9  

 

In short, this Court finally adopted the Framers' view of the Clause as a "constitutional check" to ensure that "when we come to punishments, no latitude ought to be left, nor dependence put on the virtue of representatives." That, indeed, is the only view consonant with our constitutional form of government. If the judicial conclusion that a punishment is "cruel and unusual" "depend[ed] upon virtually unanimous condemnation of the penalty at issue," then, "[l]ike no other constitutional provision, [the Clause's] only function would be to legitimize advances already made by the other departments and opinions already the conventional wisdom." We know that the Framers did not envision "so narrow a role for this basic guaranty of human rights." Goldberg & Dershowitz, Declaring the Death Penalty Unconstitutional, 83 Harv. L. Rev. 1773, 1782 (1970). The right to be free of cruel and unusual punishments, like the other guarantees of the Bill of Rights, "may not be submitted to vote; [it] depend[s] on the outcome of no elections." "The very purpose of a Bill of Rights was to withdraw certain subjects from the vicissitudes of political controversy, to place them beyond the reach of majorities and officials and to establish them as legal principles to be applied [408 U.S. 238, 269]   by the courts." Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624, 638 (1943).

Judicial enforcement of the Clause, then, cannot be evaded by invoking the obvious truth that legislatures have the power to prescribe punishments for crimes. That is precisely the reason the Clause appears in the Bill of Rights. The difficulty arises, rather, in formulating the "legal principles to be applied by the courts" when a legislatively prescribed punishment is challenged as "cruel and unusual." In formulating those constitutional principles, we must avoid the insertion of "judicial conception[s] of . . . wisdom or propriety," Weems v. United States, 217 U.S., at 379 , yet we must not, in the guise of "judicial restraint," abdicate our fundamental responsibility to enforce the Bill of Rights. Were we to do so, the "constitution would indeed be as easy of application as it would be deficient in efficacy and power. Its general principles would have little value and be converted by precedent into impotent and lifeless formulas. Rights declared in words might be lost in reality." Id., at 373. The Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause would become, in short, "little more than good advice." Trop v. Dulles, 356 U.S., at 104 .

Ours would indeed be a simple task were we required merely to measure a challenged punishment against those that history has long condemned. That narrow and unwarranted view of the Clause, however, was left behind with the 19th century. Our task today is more complex. We know "that the words of the [Clause] are not precise, and that their scope is not static." We know, therefore, that the Clause "must draw its meaning from the evolving standards of decency that mark the progress [408 U.S. 238, 270]   of a maturing society." Id., at 100-101. 10 That knowledge, of course, is but the beginning of the inquiry.

In Trop v. Dulles, supra, at 99, it was said that "[t]he question is whether [a] penalty subjects the individual to a fate forbidden by the principle of civilized treatment guaranteed by the [Clause]." It was also said that a challenged punishment must be examined "in light of the basic prohibition against inhuman treatment" embodied in the Clause. Id., at 100 n. 32. It was said, finally, that:

"The basic concept underlying the [Clause] is nothing less than the dignity of man. While the State has the power to punish, the [Clause] stands to assure that this power be exercised within the limits of civilized standards." Id., at 100.

 

At bottom, then, the Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause prohibits the infliction of uncivilized and inhuman punishments. The State, even as it punishes, must treat its members with respect for their intrinsic worth as human beings. A punishment is "cruel and unusual," therefore, if it does not comport with human dignity.

This formulation, of course, does not of itself yield principles for assessing the constitutional validity of particular punishments. Nevertheless, even though "[t]his Court has had little occasion to give precise content to the [Clause]," ibid., there are principles recognized in our cases and inherent in the Clause sufficient to permit a judicial determination whether a challenged punishment comports with human dignity. [408 U.S. 238, 271]  

The primary principle is that a punishment must not be so severe as to be degrading to the dignity of human beings. Pain, certainly, may be a factor in the judgment. The infliction of an extremely severe punishment will often entail physical suffering. See Weems v. United States, 217 U.S., at 366 . 11 Yet the Framers also knew "that there could be exercises of cruelty by laws other than those which inflicted bodily pain or mutilation." Id., at 372. Even though "[t]here may be involved no physical mistreatment, no primitive torture," Trop v. Dulles, supra, at 101, severe mental pain may be inherent in the infliction of a particular punishment. See Weems v. United States, supra, at 366. 12 That, indeed, was one of the conclusions underlying the holding of the plurality in Trop v. Dulles that the punishment of expatriation violates the Clause. 13 And the [408 U.S. 238, 272]   physical and mental suffering inherent in the punishment of cadena temporal, see nn. 11-12, supra, was an obvious basis for the Court's decision in Weems v. United States that the punishment was "cruel and unusual." 14  

More than the presence of pain, however, is comprehended in the judgment that the extreme severity of a punishment makes it degrading to the dignity of human beings. The barbaric punishments condemned by history, "punishments which inflict torture, such as the rack, the thumbscrew, the iron boot, the stretching of limbs and the like," are, of course, "attended with acute pain and suffering." O'Neil v. Vermont, 144 U.S. 323, 339 (1892) (Field, J., dissenting). When we consider why they have been condemned, however, we realize that the pain involved is not the only reason. The true significance of these punishments is that they treat [408 U.S. 238, 273]   members of the human race as nonhumans, as objects to be toyed with and discarded. They are thus inconsistent with the fundamental premise of the Clause that even the vilest criminal remains a human being possessed of common human dignity.

The infliction of an extremely severe punishment, then, like the one before the Court in Weems v. United States, from which "[n]o circumstance of degradation [was] omitted," 217 U.S., at 366 , may reflect the attitude that the person punished is not entitled to recognition as a fellow human being. That attitude may be apparent apart from the severity of the punishment itself. In Louisiana ex rel. Francis v. Resweber, 329 U.S. 459, 464 (1947), for example, the unsuccessful electrocution, although it caused "mental anguish and physical pain," was the result of "an unforeseeable accident." Had the failure been intentional, however, the punishment would have been, like torture, so degrading and indecent as to amount to a refusal to accord the criminal human status. Indeed, a punishment may be degrading to human dignity solely because it is a punishment. A State may not punish a person for being "mentally ill, or a leper, or . . . afflicted with a venereal disease," or for being addicted to narcotics. Robinson v. California, 370 U.S. 660, 666 (1962). To inflict punishment for having a disease is to treat the individual as a diseased thing rather than as a sick human being. That the punishment is not severe, "in the abstract," is irrelevant; "[e]ven one day in prison would be a cruel and unusual punishment for the `crime' of having a common cold." Id., at 667. Finally, of course, a punishment may be degrading simply by reason of its enormity. A prime example is expatriation, a "punishment more primitive than torture," Trop v. Dulles, 356 U.S., at 101 , for it necessarily involves a [408 U.S. 238, 274]   denial by society of the individual's existence as a member of the human community. 15  

In determining whether a punishment comports with human dignity, we are aided also by a second principle inherent in the Clause - that the State must not arbitrarily inflict a severe punishment. This principle derives from the notion that the State does not respect human dignity when, without reason, it inflicts upon some people a severe punishment that it does not inflict upon others. Indeed, the very words "cruel and unusual punishments" imply condemnation of the arbitrary infliction of severe punishments. And, as we now know, the English history of the Clause 16 reveals a particular concern with the establishment of a safeguard against arbitrary punishments. See Granucci, "Nor Cruel and Unusual Punishments Inflicted:" The Original Meaning, 57 Calif. L. Rev. 839, 857-860 (1969). 17   [408 U.S. 238, 275]  

This principle has been recognized in our cases. 18 In Wilkerson v. Utah, 99 U.S., at 133 -134, the Court reviewed various treatises on military law in order to demonstrate that under "the custom of war" shooting was a common method of inflicting the punishment of death. On that basis, the Court concluded:

"Cruel and unusual punishments are forbidden by the Constitution, but the authorities referred to [treatises on military law] are quite sufficient to show that the punishment of shooting as a mode of executing the death penalty for the crime of murder in the first degree is not included in that [408 U.S. 238, 276]   category, within the meaning of the [Clause]. Soldiers convicted of desertion or other capital military offenses are in the great majority of cases sentenced to be shot, and the ceremony for such occasions is given in great fulness by the writers upon the subject of courts-martial." Id., at 134-135.

 

The Court thus upheld death by shooting, so far as appears, solely on the ground that it was a common method of execution. 19  

As Wilkerson v. Utah suggests, when a severe punishment is inflicted "in the great majority of cases" in which it is legally available, there is little likelihood that the State is inflicting it arbitrarily. If, however, the infliction of a severe punishment is "something different from that which is generally done" in such cases, Trop v. Dulles, 356 U.S., at 101 n. 32, 20 there is a substantial [408 U.S. 238, 277]   likelihood that the State, contrary to the requirements of regularity and fairness embodied in the Clause, is inflicting the punishment arbitrarily. This principle is especially important today. There is scant danger, given the political processes "in an enlightened democracy such as ours," id., at 100, that extremely severe punishments will be widely applied. The more significant function of the Clause, therefore, is to protect against the danger of their arbitrary infliction.

A third principle inherent in the Clause is that a severe punishment must not be unacceptable to contemporary society. Rejection by society, of course, is a strong indication that a severe punishment does not comport with human dignity. In applying this principle, however, we must make certain that the judicial determination is as objective as possible. 21   [408 U.S. 238, 278]   Thus, for example, Weems v. United States, 217 U.S., at 380 , and Trop v. Dulles, 356 U.S., at 102 -103, suggest that one factor that may be considered is the existence of the punishment in jurisdictions other than those before the Court. Wilkerson v. Utah, supra, suggests that another factor to be considered is the historic usage of the punishment. 22 Trop v. Dulles, supra, at 99, combined present acceptance with past usage by observing that "the death penalty has been employed throughout our history, and, in a day when it is still widely accepted, it cannot be said to violate the constitutional concept of cruelty." In Robinson v. California, 370 U.S., at 666 , which involved the infliction of punishment for narcotics addiction, the Court went a step further, concluding simply that "in the light of contemporary human knowledge, a law which made a criminal offense of such a disease would doubtless be universally thought to be an infliction of cruel and unusual punishment."

The question under this principle, then, is whether there are objective indicators from which a court can conclude that contemporary society considers a severe punishment unacceptable. Accordingly, the judicial [408 U.S. 238, 279]   task is to review the history of a challenged punishment and to examine society's present practices with respect to its use. Legislative authorization, of course, does not establish acceptance. The acceptability of a severe punishment is measured, not by its availability, for it might become so offensive to society as never to be inflicted, but by its use.

The final principle inherent in the Clause is that a severe punishment must not be excessive. A punishment is excessive under this principle if it is unnecessary: The infliction of a severe punishment by the State cannot comport with human dignity when it is nothing more than the pointless infliction of suffering. If there is a significantly less severe punishment adequate to achieve the purposes for which the punishment is inflicted, cf. Robinson v. California, supra, at 666; id., at 677 (DOUGLAS, J., concurring); Trop v. Dulles, supra, at 114 (BRENNAN, J., concurring), the punishment inflicted is unnecessary and therefore excessive.

This principle first appeared in our cases in Mr. Justice Field's dissent in O'Neil v. Vermont, 144 U.S., at 337 . 23 He there took the position that:

"[The Clause] is directed, not only against punishments of the character mentioned [torturous punishments], but against all punishments which by [408 U.S. 238, 280]   their excessive length or severity are greatly disproportioned to the offences charged. The whole inhibition is against that which is excessive either in the bail required, or fine imposed, or punishment inflicted." Id., at 339-340.

 

Although the determination that a severe punishment is excessive may be grounded in a judgment that it is disproportionate to the crime, 24 the more significant basis is that the punishment serves no penal purpose more effectively than a less severe punishment. This view of the principle was explicitly recognized by the Court in Weems v. United States, supra. There the Court, reviewing a severe punishment inflicted for the falsification of an official record, found that "the highest punishment possible for a crime which may cause the loss of many thousand[s] of dollars, and to prevent which the duty of the State should be as eager as to prevent the perversion of truth in a public document, is not greater than that which may be imposed for falsifying a single item of a public account." Id., at 381. Stating that "this contrast shows more than different exercises of legislative judgment," the Court concluded that the punishment was unnecessarily severe in view of the purposes for which it was imposed. Ibid. 25   [408 U.S. 238, 281]   See also Trop v. Dulles, 356 U.S., at 111 -112 (BRENNAN, J., concurring). 26  

There are, then, four principles by which we may determine whether a particular punishment is "cruel and unusual." The primary principle, which I believe supplies the essential predicate for the application of the others, is that a punishment must not by its severity be degrading to human dignity. The paradigm violation of this principle would be the infliction of a torturous punishment of the type that the Clause has always prohibited. Yet "[i]t is unlikely that any State at this moment in history," Robinson v. California, 370 U.S., at 666 , would pass a law providing for the infliction of such a punishment. Indeed, no such punishment has ever been before this Court. The same may be said of the other principles. It is unlikely that this Court will confront a severe punishment that is obviously inflicted in wholly arbitrary fashion; no State would engage in a reign of blind terror. Nor is it likely that this Court will be called upon to review a severe punishment that is clearly and totally rejected throughout society; no legislature would be able even to authorize the infliction of such a punishment. Nor, finally, is it likely that this Court will have to consider a severe punishment that is patently unnecessary; no State today would inflict a severe punishment knowing that there was no reason whatever for doing so. In short, we are unlikely to have occasion to determine that a punishment is fatally offensive under any one principle. [408 U.S. 238, 282]  

Since the Bill of Rights was adopted, this Court has adjudged only three punishments to be within the prohibition of the Clause. See Weems v. United States, 217 U.S. 349 (1910) (12 years in chains at hard and painful labor); Trop v. Dulles, 356 U.S. 86 (1958) (expatriation); Robinson v. California, 370 U.S. 660 (1962) (imprisonment for narcotics addiction). Each punishment, of course, was degrading to human dignity, but of none could it be said conclusively that it was fatally offensive under one or the other of the principles. Rather, these "cruel and unusual punishments" seriously implicated several of the principles, and it was the application of the principles in combination that supported the judgment. That, indeed, is not surprising. The function of these principles, after all, is simply to provide means by which a court can determine whether a challenged punishment comports with human dignity. They are, therefore, interrelated, and in most cases it will be their convergence that will justify the conclusion that a punishment is "cruel and unusual." The test, then, will ordinarily be a cumulative one: If a punishment is unusually severe, if there is a strong probability that it is inflicted arbitrarily, if it is substantially rejected by contemporary society, and if there is no reason to believe that it serves any penal purpose more effectively than some less severe punishment, then the continued infliction of that punishment violates the command of the Clause that the State may not inflict inhuman and uncivilized punishments upon those convicted of crimes.

The punishment challenged in these cases is death. Death, of course, is a "traditional" punishment, Trop v. Dulles, supra, at 100, one that "has been employed throughout our history," id., at 99, and its constitutional [408 U.S. 238, 283]   background is accordingly an appropriate subject of inquiry.

There is, first, a textual consideration raised by the Bill of Rights itself. The Fifth Amendment declares that if a particular crime is punishable by death, a person charged with that crime is entitled to certain procedural protections. 27 We can thus infer that the Framers recognized the existence of what was then a common punishment. We cannot, however, make the further inference that they intended to exempt this particular punishment from the express prohibition of the Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause. 28 Nor is there any indication in the debates on the Clause that a special exception was to be made for death. If anything, the indication is to the contrary, for Livermore specifically mentioned death as a candidate for future proscription under the Clause. See supra, at 262. Finally, it does not advance analysis to insist that the Framers did not believe that adoption [408 U.S. 238, 284]   of the Bill of Rights would immediately prevent the infliction of the punishment of death; neither did they believe that it would immediately prevent the infliction of other corporal punishments that, although common at the time, see n. 6, supra, are now acknowledged to be impermissible. 29  

There is also the consideration that this Court has decided three cases involving constitutional challenges to particular methods of inflicting this punishment. In Wilkerson v. Utah, 99 U.S. 130 (1879), and In re Kemmler, 136 U.S. 436 (1890), the Court, expressing in both cases the since-rejected "historical" view of the Clause, see supra, at 264-265, approved death by shooting and death by electrocution. In Wilkerson, the Court concluded that shooting was a common method of execution, see supra, at 275-276; 30 in Kemmler, the Court held that the Clause did not apply to the States, 136 U.S., at 447 -449. 31   [408 U.S. 238, 285]   In Louisiana ex rel. Francis v. Resweber, supra, the Court approved a second attempt at electrocution after the first had failed. It was said that "[t]he Fourteenth [Amendment] would prohibit by its due process clause execution by a state in a cruel manner," 329 U.S., at 463 , but that the abortive attempt did not make the "subsequent execution any more cruel in the constitutional sense than any other execution," id., at 464. 32 These three decisions thus reveal that the Court, while ruling upon various methods of inflicting death, has assumed in the past that death was a constitutionally permissible punishment. 33 Past assumptions, however, are not sufficient to limit the scope of our examination of this punishment today. The constitutionality of death itself under the Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause is before this Court for the first time; we cannot avoid the question by recalling past cases that never directly considered it.

The question, then, is whether the deliberate infliction of death is today consistent with the command of the Clause that the State may not inflict punishments that do not comport with human dignity. I will analyze the punishment of death in terms of the principles [408 U.S. 238, 286]   set out above and the cumulative test to which they lead: It is a denial of human dignity for the State arbitrarily to subject a person to an unusually severe punishment that society has indicated it does not regard as acceptable, and that cannot be shown to serve any penal purpose more effectively than a significantly less drastic punishment. Under these principles and this test, death is today a "cruel and unusual" punishment.

Death is a unique punishment in the United States. In a society that so strongly affirms the sanctity of life, not surprisingly the common view is that death is the ultimate sanction. This natural human feeling appears all about us. There has been no national debate about punishment, in general or by imprisonment, comparable to the debate about the punishment of death. No other punishment has been so continuously restricted, see infra, at 296-298, nor has any State yet abolished prisons, as some have abolished this punishment. And those States that still inflict death reserve it for the most heinous crimes. Juries, of course, have always treated death cases differently, as have governors exercising their commutation powers. Criminal defendants are of the same view. "As all practicing lawyers know, who have defended persons charged with capital offenses, often the only goal possible is to avoid the death penalty." Griffin v. Illinois, 351 U.S. 12, 28 (1956) (Burton and Minton, JJ., dissenting). Some legislatures have required particular procedures, such as two-stage trials and automatic appeals, applicable only in death cases. "It is the universal experience in the administration of criminal justice that those charged with capital offenses are granted special considerations." Ibid. See Williams v. Florida, 399 U.S. 78, 103 (1970) (all States require juries of 12 in death cases). This Court, too, almost [408 U.S. 238, 287]   always treats death cases as a class apart. 34 And the unfortunate effect of this punishment upon the functioning of the judicial process is well known; no other punishment has a similar effect.

The only explanation for the uniqueness of death is its extreme severity. Death is today an unusually severe punishment, unusual in its pain, in its finality, and in its enormity. No other existing punishment is comparable to death in terms of physical and mental suffering. Although our information is not conclusive, it appears that there is no method available that guarantees an immediate and painless death. 35 Since the discontinuance [408 U.S. 238, 288]   of flogging as a constitutionally permissible punishment, Jackson v. Bishop, 404 F.2d 571 (CA8 1968), death remains as the only punishment that may involve the conscious infliction of physical pain. In addition, we know that mental pain is an inseparable part of our practice of punishing criminals by death, for the prospect of pending execution exacts a frightful toll during the inevitable long wait between the imposition of sentence and the actual infliction of death. Cf. Ex parte Medley, 134 U.S. 160, 172 (1890). As the California Supreme Court pointed out, "the process of carrying out a verdict of death is often so degrading and brutalizing to the human spirit as to constitute psychological torture." People v. Anderson, 6 Cal. 3d 628, 649, 493 P.2d 880, 894 (1972). 36 Indeed, as Mr. Justice Frankfurter noted, "the onset of insanity while awaiting [408 U.S. 238, 289]   execution of a death sentence is not a rare phenomenon." Solesbee v. Balkcom, 339 U.S. 9, 14 (1950) (dissenting opinion). The "fate of ever-increasing fear and distress" to which the expatriate is subjected, Trop v. Dulles, 356 U.S., at 102 , can only exist to a greater degree for a person confined in prison awaiting death. 37  

The unusual severity of death is manifested most clearly in its finality and enormity. Death, in these respects, is in a class by itself. Expatriation, for example, is a punishment that "destroys for the individual the political existence that was centuries in the development," that "strips the citizen of his status in the national and international political community," and that puts "[h]is very existence" in jeopardy. Expatriation thus inherently entails "the total destruction of the individual's status in organized society." Id., at 101. "In short, the expatriate has lost the right to have rights." Id., at 102. Yet, demonstrably, expatriation is not "a fate worse than death." Id., at 125 (Frankfurter, J., dissenting). 38 Although death, like expatriation, destroys the [408 U.S. 238, 290]   individual's "political existence" and his "status in organized society," it does more, for, unlike expatriation, death also destroys "[h]is very existence." There is, too, at least the possibility that the expatriate will in the future regain "the right to have rights." Death forecloses even that possibility.

Death is truly an awesome punishment. The calculated killing of a human being by the State involves, by its very nature, a denial of the executed person's humanity. The contrast with the plight of a person punished by imprisonment is evident. An individual in prison does not lose "the right to have rights." A prisoner retains, for example, the constitutional rights to the free exercise of religion, to be free of cruel and unusual punishments, and to treatment as a "person" for purposes of due process of law and the equal protection of the laws. A prisoner remains a member of the human family. Moreover, he retains the right of access to the courts. His punishment is not irrevocable. Apart from the common charge, grounded upon the recognition of human fallibility, that the punishment of death must inevitably be inflicted upon innocent men, we know that death has been the lot of men whose convictions were unconstitutionally secured in view of later, retroactively applied, holdings of this Court. The punishment itself may have been unconstitutionally inflicted, see Witherspoon v. Illinois, 391 U.S. 510 (1968), yet the finality of death precludes relief. An executed person has indeed "lost the right to have rights." As one 19th century proponent of punishing criminals by death declared, "When a man is hung, there is an end of our relations with him. His execution is a way of saying, `You are not fit for this world, take your chance elsewhere.'" 39   [408 U.S. 238, 291]  

In comparison to all other punishments today, then, the deliberate extinguishment of human life by the State is uniquely degrading to human dignity. I would not hesitate to hold, on that ground alone, that death is today a "cruel and unusual" punishment, were it not that death is a punishment of longstanding usage and acceptance in this country. I therefore turn to the second principle - that the State may not arbitrarily inflict an unusually severe punishment.

The outstanding characteristic of our present practice of punishing criminals by death is the infrequency with which we resort to it. The evidence is conclusive that death is not the ordinary punishment for any crime.

There has been a steady decline in the infliction of this punishment in every decade since the 1930's, the earliest period for which accurate statistics are available. In the 1930's, executions averaged 167 per year; in the 1940's, the average was 128; in the 1950's, it was 72; and in the years 1960-1962, it was 48. There have been a total of 46 executions since then, 36 of them in 1963-1964. 40 Yet our population and the number of capital crimes committed have increased greatly over the past four decades. The contemporary rarity of the infliction of this punishment is thus the end result of a long-continued decline. That rarity is plainly revealed by an examination of the years 1961-1970, the last 10-year period for which statistics are available. During that time, an average of 106 death sentences [408 U.S. 238, 292]   was imposed each year. 41 Not nearly that number, however, could be carried out, for many were precluded by commutations to life or a term of years, 42 transfers to mental institutions because of insanity, 43 resentences to life or a term of years, grants of new trials and orders for resentencing, dismissals of indictments and reversals of convictions, and deaths by suicide and natural causes. 44 On January 1, 1961, the death row population was 219; on December 31, 1970, it was 608; during that span, there were 135 executions. 45 Consequently, had the 389 additions to death row also been executed, the annual average would have been 52. 46 In short, the country [408 U.S. 238, 293]   might, at most, have executed one criminal each week. In fact, of course, far fewer were executed. Even before the moratorium on executions began in 1967, executions totaled only 42 in 1961 and 47 in 1962, an average of less than one per week; the number dwindled to 21 in 1963, to 15 in 1964, and to seven in 1965; in 1966, there was one execution, and in 1967, there were two. 47  

When a country of over 200 million people inflicts an unusually severe punishment no more than 50 times a year, the inference is strong that the punishment is not being regularly and fairly applied. To dispel it would indeed require a clear showing of nonarbitrary infliction.

Although there are no exact figures available, we know that thousands of murders and rapes are committed annually in States where death is an authorized punishment for those crimes. However the rate of infliction is characterized - as "freakishly" or "spectacularly" rare, or simply as rare - it would take the purest sophistry to deny that death is inflicted in only a minute fraction of these cases. How much rarer, after all, could the infliction of death be?

When the punishment of death is inflicted in a trivial number of the cases in which it is legally available, the conclusion is virtually inescapable that it is being inflicted arbitrarily. Indeed, it smacks of little more than a lottery system. The States claim, however, that this rarity is evidence not of arbitrariness, but of informed selectivity: Death is inflicted, they say, only in "extreme" cases.

Informed selectivity, of course, is a value not to be denigrated. Yet presumably the States could make precisely the same claim if there were 10 executions per [408 U.S. 238, 294]   year, or five, or even if there were but one. That there may be as many as 50 per year does not strengthen the claim. When the rate of infliction is at this low level, it is highly implausible that only the worst criminals or the criminals who commit the worst crimes are selected for this punishment. No one has yet suggested a rational basis that could differentiate in those terms the few who die from the many who go to prison. Crimes and criminals simply do not admit of a distinction that can be drawn so finely as to explain, on that ground, the execution of such a tiny sample of those eligible. Certainly the laws that provide for this punishment do not attempt to draw that distinction; all cases to which the laws apply are necessarily "extreme." Nor is the distinction credible in fact. If, for example, petitioner Furman or his crime illustrates the "extreme," then nearly all murderers and their murders are also "extreme." 48 Furthermore, our procedures in death cases, [408 U.S. 238, 295]   rather than resulting in the selection of "extreme" cases for this punishment, actually sanction an arbitrary selection. For this Court has held that juries may, as they do, make the decision whether to impose a death sentence wholly unguided by stan