NCJ Number
70909
Journal
American Journal of Criminal Law Volume: 8 Issue: 1 Dated: (March 1980) Pages: 1-42
Date Published
1980
Length
42 pages
Annotation
The constitutionality of the Texas capital murder statue is discussed with condideration the capital punishment parameters established by the United States Court.
Abstract
The Supreme Court has decided that enforcement of the death penalty on certain members of the criminal population will advance legitimate social goals. It now faces the difficult problem of creating an enforcement mechanism that properly invokes its use, applying the death penalty only in those predetermined situations where it is relevant. This procedural component of death penalty use has proven difficult to establish since the Court's 1972 decision in 'Furman v. Georgia.' It is argued herein, through analysis of the problems faced under the Texas capital punishment statute, that the benefits derived from capital punishment wane before the costs of its implementation. The Texas capital murder statute violates the defendant's eighth and fourteenth amendent guarantees of a fair trial by permitting death penalty qualification to exceed the bounds of the Court's 1968 decision in 'Witherspoon v. Illinois,' by providing sentencing guidelines which fetter rather than channel the jury's discretion, and by leaving the question of whether a defendant should live or die to conclusions drawn from dubious psychiatric testimony. The Court cannot retreat from its position that the imposition of the death penalty demands the most exacting procedural safeguards. Yet the Texas experience, and the experience of other States, lends credence to the proposition that capital punishment may not be feasible in terms of costs and benefits. Footnotes are included in the article.