Closing Death Row

"I was lying on my bunk," said Lucious Jackson, 25, a rapist confined on the death row of Georgia State Prison, "when I heard one of the fellows shout that they've knocked it out. I had just about given up hope."

"They" were the Justices of the U.S. Supreme Court, who last week in a long-awaited decision knocked out the death penalty. By the narrowest of margins, they ruled that capital punishment as currently imposed is cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth and 14th Amendments.

Since 1967, there has been a moratorium on executions while various cases (including Jackson's) worked their way up through the appeals courts. The Supreme Court, partly transformed by President Nixon's appointment of four Justices, was expected to uphold the death penalty, but on the last day of its term, the court produced its surprise.

Although the vote was officially 5-4, it was really closer than that. All nine Justices wrote opinions, and only two--Brennan and Marshall--declared that capital punishment per se is cruel and unusual. Douglas, White and Stewart all felt that the death sentences in the murder and two rape cases before the court had been applied "wantonly and freakishly," to use Stewart's words, because only a tiny minority of defendants convicted of similar offenses suffer the same fate. They left open the possibility, however, that a law would be constitutional if it called for capital punishment for certain kinds of crime (like the murder of a policeman) and if it was uniformly applied.

All four Nixon appointees dissented, mainly on the ground that the abolition of execution is the business of legislatures, not judges. Indeed, a number of state officials greeted the court action with calls for new legislation to restore capital punishment. As for the 601 convicts on death row, Powell said the majority's opinions meant they have been reprieved, while Burger complained that the verdict gave no "final and unambiguous answer."

Such distinctions mattered little to Lucious Jackson: "I've been thinking about nothing but death for a long time. Now I can think about living."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.