1. When it comes to the role the NAACP played in respects to challenging the death penalty
law, they got inspired when Justice Arthur Goldberg wrote a dissent from denial of certiorari in
Rudolph v Alabama. Justice Arthur Goldberg wrote that the death penalty is unconstitutional.
The NAACP believed that the death penalty was a racial issue in the United States. The death
penalty was always used against a black man or women especially in cases of rape which were
very common. Between 1930 and 1972 455 people were executed for rape in the United States
and 405 of them were black. This proves the belief that the NAACP had when it came to the use
of the death penalty. They challenged the death penalty and made a nationwide litigation
campaign across the country to challenge the death penalty constitutionally. They did this by
distributing ready-to-file litigation papers to criminal defense lawyers across the country. This
helped with the elimination of the death penalty.
2. Furman v. Georgia was the case in which the court decided that the death penalty was cruel
and unusual punishment, and it was in violation of the eight and fourteenth amendments.
There were nine different opinions when it came to the Furman v. Georgia case. When it
comes to the differences that the Supreme Court Justices had written up their own separate
opinions about the death penalty. They all thought that the death penalty was unconstitutional
for different reasons in different ways. Even when it came to the majority five justices that the
same opinion, they never joined any other justices and their opinions when it came to the
majority opinions. They all stood on their different opinions on why the death penalty was
unconstitutional because they thought the death penalty was unconstitutional for different
underlying reasons. Two of the five majority William J Brennan Jr and Thurgood Marshall
thought that the death penalty was all together in every case, cruel and unusual punishment.
These two justices usually always join in their opinions but in this case, they believed for two
different reasons that the death penalty could never be a constitutional punishment. The other
three justices did not believe that the death penalty in every case was cruel and unusual
punishment. They believe the way that the punishment was implemented was cruel and
unusual. William O Douglas noted that the death penalty was discriminatory and tended to be
imposed on minority defendants and poor people. The death penalty to them was only used in
cases where the defendant was either a minority or had no underlying reason not to be jail. For
example, if they were not really important to society or contributed to society in any specific
way. Potter Stewart and Byron White were at the center of this opinion because they had just
changed their minds from the year before. The thought that the way in which the death penalty
was widely authorized from many cases but rarely imposed so there seemed to be no reason
for the death penalty since it was used randomly in many cases. They believed that the death
penalty really had to rhyme or reason to it. There was no strict “rubric” that the defendant had
to have done for them to get the death penalty. Many defendants simply got they death
penalty because they were a part of the minority and not based on the severity of the crime
they committed.
3. In Coker v. Georgia the victim was an adult whereas in Kennedy v. Louisiana the victim was a
child. The supreme court decided in Coker v. Georgia that the death penalty was cruel and
unusual punishment for the rape of an adult. In in Kennedy v. Louisiana the supreme court also
decided that the death penalty was cruel and unusual punishment for the rape of a child. I do
agree with the decision made in Kennedy v. Louisiana. Using the death penalty for a child’s rape
case but not an adult defeats the purpose of the death penalty. I do understand that the victim
that is affected is severely different but both victims went through the same thing and giving a
different punishment based on age of the victim does not seem fair. If Kennedy was sentenced
to death than it would have been wrong for Coker to not be punished to death just because his
victim was an adult. Coker also had more reason to be punished to the death sentence than
Kennedy did. Coker had a history of murder, rape, kidnapping and assault and even escaped
prison to commit the last crime. History of criminally offences should have been taken into
consideration for Coker’s case. Whereas for Kennedy we only know about the rape case against
his step-daughter.
4. Espionage.