off the list after the California Supreme Court declared the death penalty unconstitutional under its states constitution. The rest were consolidated under the Furman case for the high courts review. The petitioners in each of these cases argued their cases on the basis of the standardless process which juries endure to assign a Death Penalty sentence. The result was a landmark decision. A majority, 5-4, determined cruel and unusual punishment existed, but the decision had several loopholes. Most importantly, there was absolutely no consensus on the issue. Every individual justice wrote a separate opinion. The death penalty was not ruled unconstitutional under all conditions, so it was left to the states to create systems under their own jurisdiction.In a concurring opinion written by Justice Brennan, he held that since the death penalty is administered so infrequently, the offenses should be just as extraordinary themselves. The law of the land at the time of the decision allowed rapists and 2nd and 3rd degree murderers to be sentenced to die, and yet the rate of infliction is characterized as a freakishly or spectacularly rate Justice Stewart is quoted in his concurring decision as the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments cannot tolerate the infliction of a sentence of death under legal systems that permit this unique penalty to be so wantonly and so freakishly imposed. Justice White took a much more severe opinion towards the entire penalty. He stipulated that, The imposition and execution of the death penalty are obviously cruel in the dictionary sense. Chief Justice Burger, in no uncertain terms, left the loophole for state legislatures to create systems that regulate the sentencing of death penalty criminals. Over the next two years, several states attempted to create these systems, however ill advised they were. In 1974, the chairman of the Senates Judiciary Committee, Senator Corbet said, we are trying to figure out what the S...
