The court established three criteria necessary to label a punishment as cruel and unusual.".
- It is a punishment originally understood by the Framers of the Constitution to be cruel and unusual.
- There is societal consensus that the punishment offends civilized standards of human decency.
- It is (1) grossly disproportionate to the severity of the crime and (2) makes no measurable contribution to acceptable goals of punishment.
In Furman, Supreme Court ruled that the death penalty was arbitrarily and capriciously" applied under existing law. In 1973, in response to the decision, state began to revise their statutes to conform to the guidelines established by the Supreme Court. Gregg v. Georgia (1973), the Court found that the revised statutes did not violate the Eight Amendment when considering the follow stipulations:.
- In death penalty cases, the determination of guilt or innocence must be decided separately from hearings in which sentences of life imprisonment or death are decided.
- The court must consider aggravating and mitigating circumstances in relation to both the crime and the offender. .
- The death sentence must be subject to review by the highest State court of appeals to ensure that the penalty is in proportion to the gravity of the offense and is imposed even-handedly under State law.
By 1995, 38 States and the Federal Government had enacted statutes authorizing the death penalty for certain forms of murder. Thomas Graunger, the first juvenile known to be executed in America, was tried and found guilty of bestiality in 1642 in Plymouth Colony, MA. Since that execution, 361 individuals have been executed for crimes committed when they were juveniles. The Supreme Court decided its first juvenile case, Kent v. United States, in which it limited the waiver discretion of juvenile courts, in 1966. Initially, juvenile courts had enjoyed broad discretion in deciding when to waive cases to criminal court.