In Furman v. Georgia, the Supreme Court held that the death penalty, as it was applied at the time, was unconstitutional since the jury had a very specific set of mitigating and aggravating circumstances that had to be addressed before imposing the death penalty.

Question

In Furman v. Georgia, the Supreme Court held that the death penalty, as it was applied at the time, was unconstitutional since the jury had a very specific set of mitigating and aggravating circumstances that had to be addressed before imposing the death penalty.
Group of answer choices

True

False

GPT-4o mini · Answer

False

In Furman v. Georgia (1972), the Supreme Court did rule that the death penalty, as it was applied at the time, was unconstitutional because it was found to be arbitrary and capricious, leading to discriminatory applications. However, the ruling did not focus solely on the requirement to address specific mitigating and aggravating circumstances; rather, it highlighted the lack of consistent standards and the random nature of death penalty sentences. The decision effectively put a halt to capital punishment in many states until new statutes were created to address the Court's concerns.