Society experience arbitrariness in different ways and aspects of life; since childhood, our upbringing is full of arbitrariness, at home, we experience arbitrariness from our parents or guardians, when grown up, we perceive arbitrariness in our employment environment, and even at sports events; but in criminology when arbitrariness occurs, we recognize that our criminal justice system is shattered and that each person or party that partakes on such process contributes a level of arbitrariness that is unconscionable. Since our culture has experienced arbitrariness in all aspects of life, arbitrariness goes unnoticed most of the time, our society has grown so accustom to it that it will not try to avoid it. However, when it comes to person …show more content…
Since Furman v. Georgia, the Supreme Court struck down Georgia’s death penalty due to infrequencies and the randomness of the imposition of the death penalty. (Mandery, 2012, p.135). The two justices who switched sides between the Furman case and the Gregg case, both expressed mayor concern in Furman with the infrequency and randomness with which juries imposed the death penalty. “For Justice Potter Stewart, the arbitrariness was a matter of fairness. For Justice Byron White, the concern was utilitarian a randomly and infrequently imposed death penalty could not possibly deter” (Mandery, 2012, p.135), they both expressed similar concerns about the apparent arbitrariness with which death sentences were imposed under the existing law, each found the unpredictability of the original statute fatal, it seems only fair to ask whether the revised Georgia statute has created greater rationality. (Mandery, 2012, p.135) The Supreme Court realized that the process in which defendants were being persecuted was not based a fairness practices; it was administrated in a different way by different judges, juries, prosecutors, etc. The Supreme Court found only how the death penalty was applied was cruel and unusual; it was too uneven and inconsistent. As a result of the 1972 Furman decision, hundreds of inmates on death row had their sentences commuted to life, and a significant number of those inmates have now been …show more content…
After only four short years, thirty-seven states passed new death penalty laws designed to overcome the Supreme Court 's concerns about the arbitrary imposition of the death penalty. Statutes instructing bifurcated trials, with separate guilt- innocent phase and sentencing phase were created, as well as imposing standards to guide the discretion of juries and judges in imposing capital sentences, were upheld in a series of Supreme Court decisions in 1976 in Gregg v. Georgia. According to Mandery (2012), “ Georgia reformed its death-sentencing scheme in three significant ways: (1) it bifurcated trials; (2) it created a set of statutory aggravating factors, at least one of which must be found b the jury to be proved beyond a reasonable doubt; and (3) it required the automatic appeal of all death sentences to the Georgia State Supreme Court to determine whether the sentence was disproportionate compared to sentences imposed in similar cases”(p.135). By creating these three new statutes, the states wanted to insure that arbitrariness would not be part of the court procedure. “The scheme of aggravating factors is much more significant from the
The evidence presented to myself and the other juror’s proves that Tyrone Washburn is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of the murder of his wife, Elena Washburn. On March 12, 1979 Elena Washburn was strangled in the living room of her family’s home. Her body was then dragged to the garage, leaving a trail of blood from the living room to the place it was found. Her husband, Tyrone Washburn, found her in the family’s garage on March 13, 1979 at 1:45 A.M. When officer Dale Chambers arrived at the scene he found her lying face down in a pool of blood. The solid evidence in this case proves only one person, Tyrone Washburn, is guilty of murder.
In the controversial court case, McCulloch v. Maryland, Chief Justice John Marshall’s verdict gave Congress the implied powers to carry out any laws they deemed to be “necessary and proper” to the state of the Union. In this 1819 court case, the state of Maryland tried to sue James McCulloch, a cashier at the Second Bank of the United States, for opening a branch in Baltimore. McCulloch refused to pay the tax and therefore the issue was brought before the courts; the decision would therefore change the way Americans viewed the Constitution to this day.
.... Madison was applied to this decision because the actions committed were unconstitutional. According to the Supreme Court the 8th Amendment was broken because the District Court of Appeal was giving a cruel and unusual punishment to Graham. The 8th amendment claus does not allow a juvenile offender to be sentenced to life in jail without a parole for a non-homicidal crime. Therefore Terrance could not fall through with this punishment.
...d some publicity, and several lawyers were now handling his appeal,” (Furman v. Georgia). The first step was the Georgia Supreme Court. The court unanimously voted to uphold the lower court’s decision of the death penalty. The Chief Justice, W. H. Duckworth, gave Furman time to petition to the US Supreme Court before the execution was finalized. The Supreme Court approved. And thus, the official Furman v. Georgia case had begun. “I admit going to these folks' home and they did caught me in there and I was coming back out, backing up and there was a wire down there on the floor. I was coming out backwards and fell back and I didn't intend to kill nobody . . . The gun went off and I didn't know nothing about no murder until they arrested me, and when the gun went off I was down on the floor and I got up and ran. That's all to it,” (Official Supreme Court Transcript).
The case Worcester v. Georgia (1832) was a basis for the discussion of the issue of states' rights versus the federal government as played out in the administration of President Andrew Jackson and its battle with the Supreme Court. In addition to the constitutional issues involved, the momentum of the westward movement and popular support for Indian resettlement pitted white man against Indian. All of these factors came together in the Worcester case, which alarmed the independence of the Cherokee Nation, but which was not enforced. This examines the legal issues and tragic consequences of Indian resettlement.
Furman v. Georgia was a landmark case in the annals of American Law because it was the first time the Supreme Court turned to the controversial question of capital punishment. Capital punishment has always been a hotly debated issue in the United States. When this issue is coupled with the issue of racial discrimination, the matter becomes hotter than ever. And this is precisely what Furman v. Georgia was all about: a black man convicted of murder and sentenced to death.
In the early 1950’s, the number of executions sharply declined. Opponents of the death penalty claimed that it violated the Eighth Amendment, which forbids cruel and unusual punishment. Opponents also claimed the death penalty violated the Fourteenth Amendment, which states that all citizens are entitled to equal protection under the law. In early 1972, William Furman was convicted of burglary and murder. While Furman was burglarizing a home, a resident arrived at the scene. Startled, Furman tried to flee, but tripped and fell in the process. The gun Furman was carrying discharged, killing the resident in the process. Furman did not believe he deserved the death penalty. The constitutionality of capital punishment in this circumstance was considered in the supreme co...
By the mid 1960s, the death penalty seemed fated for extinction. Only seven executions were conducted in 1965 and only one in 1966. For about ten years supporters and opposers of capital punishment looked to the Supreme Court for a final ruling on the constitutionality of the death penalty. The word came out in 1976 in the case of Gregg v. Georgia. The court ruled that, " the punishment of death does not violate the Constitution."
Registered nurses are some of the many men and women running around hospitals, nursing homes, or doctors offices wearing scrubs. They do a great deal of work, more than what society gives them credit for. Nurses do not just give shots and hand the patient a sucker afterwards for being brave. “ … They may administer medication, monitor patient recovery and progress, and educate patients and their families on disease prevention and post-hospital treatment” (dictionary.com). They are there for it all, to cheer on their patients when their health improves or a shoulder to cry on when
In Furman v Georgia in 1972, the Court invalidated all then-existing death penalty laws based on the inherent arbitrariness of their application. Most observers at the time concluded that there would never again be an execution in the United States. They were wrong. In 1976, in Gregg v. Georgia, the Court upheld Georgia's new capital-sentencing procedures, concluding that they had sufficiently reduced the problem of arbitrary and capricious imposition of death associated with earlier statutes.
The Tennessee v. Garner case impacted law enforcement agencies today by utilizing the Fourth Amendment right of not using deadly force to prevent a suspect from fleeing unless the officer is in imminent danger of their life. Consequently, before this was set into place, an officer had the right to use deadly force on a fleeing suspect by all means.” The first time the Court dealt with the use of force was in Tennessee v. Garner, in Garner, a police officer used deadly force despite being "reasonably sure" that the suspect was an unarmed teenager "of slight build" who was running away from him” (Gross,2016). Whereas, with Graham v. Conner case was surrounded around excessive force which also has an impact on law enforcement agencies in today’s society as well. “All claims that law enforcement officers have used excessive force deadly or not in the course of an arrest, investigatory stop, or other “seizure” of s free citizen should be analyzed under the Fourth Amendment and its “reasonableness” standard” (Doerner,2016).
In 1972, the Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238 came into preponderance and introduced the concept of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendment when considering decisions against the death penalty. In the Furman v. Georgia case, William Furman was the defendant who shot and killed a homeowner when he burglarized the home in Savannah, Georgia, in 1967. Since Furman was African American, who committed a crime against a white homeowner in the South that is considered to be a racially discriminatory region, the near all-white jury decided on a death sentence within less than a day’s trial and deliberation (Oshinsky, 1). Furman’s attorney then appealed the decision to the Supreme C...
Charles MacLean spends most of his article arguing against the “death is different” jurisprudence which Simmons v. South Carolina began in 1994. MacLean argues that life imprisonment without the possibility of parole is just as racially disparate as the sentence of death. In 2007 Brewer v. Quarterman stated that “No one [should] be at ease with the stark reality that this Court’s [indecisive] pronouncements have produced grossly inequitable treatment of those on death row.” In 2010 Graham v. Florida stated “Today’s decision [deprives] that distinction…‘death is different’ no longer.” MacLean asks the question: “Why should [the “death is different”] debate and the extraordinary capital punishment case procedural safeguards that follow be reserved only for capital punishment cases?” His argument follows, in which he states that a person sentenced to serve the rest of his natural life in prison without possibility of parole will die in prison just like the condemned. The same goes for a person who receives a thirty–year prison sentence, who has suffered a loss of freedom and life. With this in mind, MacLean believes these very serious sentences
Nursing is a profession that I have always been fascinated with. Nursing is defined as "health promotion, health maintenance, health restoration and providing care to the sick and dying" (Kozier and Erb). There are five values essential to nursing, which include altruism, autonomy, human dignity, integrity and social justice (AACN). Nursing is a profession in which the nurse uses caring as a central concept. Some other characteristics of the nursing profession include art, science, advocacy, and offering holistic care. Nurses use critical thinking in order to problem solve because every patient is unique. The nursing process when assessing a patient includes, data collection, analysis, planning, implementing, and evaluation. Nurses need to be able to deal with change in stressful, fast paced, hectic environments. The treatments and technology is constantly changing therefore nurses need to be able to make quick and important decisions.
For instance, the 1972 Furman V. Georgia case abolished the death penalty for four years on the grounds that capital punishment was extensive with racial inequalities (Latzer 21). Over twenty five years later, those inequalities are higher than ever. The statistics says that African Americans are twelve percent of the U.S. population, but are 43 percent of the prisoners on death row. Although blacks make up 50 percent of all murder victims, 83 percent of the victims in death penalty cases are white. Since 1976 only ten executions involved a white defendant who had killed a bl...