NCJ Number
80801
Journal
Criminal Justice Abstracts Volume: 13 Issue: 4 Dated: (December 1981) Pages: 577-596
Date Published
1981
Length
20 pages
Annotation
The application of sentencing standards to a number of recent capital cases is examined in relation to relevant Supreme Court decisions, and public attitudes toward capital punishment are critiqued.
Abstract
Despite the Supreme Court's affirmation of the fairness of guided discretion statutes and appellate review in promoting rational and consistent imposition of death sentences, the listing of mitigating circumstances augmenting the seriousness of an offense is vague and arbitrary, leaving application of the 'standard' to the discretion of the applier in a given case. In fact, the entire criminal justice system is riddled with points of choice unsupervised by precise standards, such that arbitrariness is inevitable in the stages that lead toward the imposition of the death penalty. Polls on public support for the death penalty have been heeded by the Supreme Court as indicating that 'evolving standards of decency' do not preclude use of capital punishment. Yet, studies tend to show that persistent proponents of capital punishment are displaying a symbolic attitude or ideological stance not amenable to revision in considering the specific facts of a given case. Thus, both particular court cases and the character of public opinion favoring the death penalty suggest that the Supreme Court standard for the rational and consistent application of the death penalty is not possible. Sixty-five footnotes are listed. For parts one and two of this series of articles, see NCJ 79612-13.