Glass v. Louisiana, 84-6030

• Decision Date: 29 April 1985
• Docket Number: No. 84-6030,84-6030
• Citation: 105 S.Ct. 2159,471 U.S. 1080,85 L.Ed.2d 514
• Parties: Jimmy L. GLASS v. LOUISIANA
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

471 U.S. 1080

105 S.Ct. 2159

85 L.Ed.2d 514

Jimmy L. GLASS

v LOUISIANA

No. 84-6030

Supreme Court of the United States

April 29, 1985

Rehearing Denied June 24, 1985.

See 472 U.S. 1033, 105 S.Ct. 3516.

On petition for writ of certiorari to the Supreme Court of Louisiana.

The petition for a writ of certiorari is denied.

Justice BRENNAN, with whom Justice MARSHALL joins, dissenting from denial of certiorari.

The petitioner Jimmy L. Glass has been condemned to death by electrocution—"that is, causing to pass through the body of the person convicted a current of electricity of sufficient intensity to cause death, and the application and continuance of such current through the body of the person convicted until such person is dead." La.Rev.Stat.Ann. § 15:569 (West 1981). Glass contends that "electrocution causes the gratuitous infliction of unnecessary pain and suffering and does not comport with evolving standards of human dignity,"

Page 1080-Continued.

and that this method of officially sponsored execution therefore violates the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. Pet. for Cert. 27. The Supreme Court of Louisiana held that this claim must summarily be rejected pursuant to "clearly established principles of law" and observed that, in any event, the claim is wholly lacking in medical or scientific merit. 455 So.2d 659, 660, 671 (1984).

I adhere to my view that the death penalty is in all circumstances cruel and unusual punishment prohibited by the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments, Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153, 227, 96 S.Ct. 2909, 2950, 49 L.Ed.2d 859 (1976) (BRENNAN, J., dissenting), and would therefore grant certiorari and vacate Glass' death sentence in any event. One of the reasons I adhere to this view is my belief that the "physical and mental suffering" inherent in any method of execution is so "uniquely degrading to human dignity" that, when combined with the arbitrariness by which capital punishment is imposed, the trend of enlightened opinion, and the availability of less severe penological alternatives, the death penalty is always unconstitutional. Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238, 287-291, 92 S.Ct. 2726, 2751-2753, 33 L.Ed.2d 346 (1972).

Even if I thought otherwise, however, I would vote to grant certiorari. Glass' petition presents an important and unsettling question that cuts to the very heart of the Eighth Amendment's Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause ¹—a question that demands measured judicial consideration. Of the 42 officially sponsored executions carried out since the Court's decision in Gregg v. Georgia, supra, 31 have been by means of electrocution.² And since Gregg, an ever-increasing number of condemned prisoners have contended that electrocution is a cruel and barbaric method of extinguishing human life, both per se and as compared with other available means of execution. As in this case, such claims have uniformly and summarily been rejected,³ typically on the strength of this Court's opinion in In re Kemmler, 136 U.S. 436, 10 S.Ct. 930, 34 L.Ed. 519 (1890), which authorized the State of New York to proceed with the first electrocution 95 years ago. Kemmler, however, was grounded on a number of constitutional premises that have long since been rejected and on factual assumptions that appear not to have withstood the test of experience. I believe the time has come to measure electrocution against well-established contemporary Eighth Amendment principles.

I

Electrocution as a means of killing criminals was first authorized by the New York Legislature in 1888, and resulted from a lengthy investigation to identify "the most humane and practical method known to modern science of carrying into effect the sentence of death in capital cases." ⁴ In In re Kemmler, supra, this Court rejected a constitutional attack on New York's statute by William Kemmler, who was scheduled to be the first person put to death by electrocution. The Court emphasized that, because the Eighth Amendment was not applicable to the States, "[t]he decision of the state courts sustaining the validity of the act under the state constitution is not reexaminable here." Id., at 447, 10 S.Ct., at 934.⁵ In dicta, the Court also followed a "historical" interpretation of the Cruel and Unusual Punishment Clause as it governed executions carried out by the Federal Government, suggesting that the constitutionality of a particular means of execution should be determined by reference to contemporary norms at the time the Bill of Rights was adopted. See id., at 446-447, 10 S.Ct., at 933-934. In addition, the Court approvingly observed that the state court had concluded that " 'it is within easy reach of electrical science at this day to so generate and apply to the person of the convict a current of electricity of such known and sufficient force as certainly to produce instantaneous, and, therefore, painless, death.' " Id., at 443, 10 S.Ct., at 932 (emphasis added).

State and federal courts recurrently cite to Kemmler as having conclusively resolved that electrocution is a constitutional method of extinguishing life, and accordingly that further factual and legal consideration of the issue is unnecessary. See n. 3, supra. But Kemmler clearly is antiquated authority. It is now well established that the Eighth Amendment applies to the States through the Fourteenth Amendment. See, e.g., Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S., at 168, 96 S.Ct., at 2922 (opinion of Stewart, POWELL, and STEVENS, JJ.); Robinson v. California, 370 U.S. 660, 82 S.Ct. 1417, 8 L.Ed.2d 758 (1962). Moreover, the Court long ago rejected Kemmler's "historical" interpretation of the Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause, emphasizing instead that the prohibitions of the Clause are not "confine[d] . . . to such penalties and punishment as were inflicted by the Stuarts." Weems v. United States, 217 U.S. 349, 372, 30 S.Ct. 544, 551, 54 L.Ed. 793 (1910). This is because "[t]ime works changes, [and] brings into existence new conditions and purposes. Therefore a principle to be vital must be capable of wider application than the mischief which gave it birth." Id., at 373, 30 S.Ct., at 551. The Clause thus has an "expansive and vital character," id., at 377, 30 S.Ct., at 553, that "draw[s] its meaning from the evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society," Trop v. Dulles, 356 U.S. 86, 101, 78 S.Ct. 590, 598, 2 L.Ed.2d 630 (1958) (plurality opinion).⁶ Accordingly, Eighth Amendment claims must be evaluated "in the light of contemporary human knowledge," Robinson v. California, supra, 370 U.S., at 666, 82 S.Ct., at 1420, rather than in reliance on century-old factual premises that may no longer be accurate.

To be sure, legislative decisions concerning appropriate forms of punishment are entitled to considerable deference. But in common with all constitutional guarantees, "it is evident that legislative judgments alone cannot be determinative of Eighth Amendment standards since that Amendment was intended to safeguard individuals from the abuse of legislative power." Gregg v. Georgia, supra, 428 U.S., at 174, n. 19, 96 S.Ct., at 2925, n. 19 (opinion of Stewart, POWELL, and STEVENS, JJ.); see also Weems v. United States, supra, 217 U.S., at 371-373, 30 S.Ct., at 550-551.⁷ "[T]he Constitution contemplates that in the end [a court's] own judgment will be brought to bear on the question of the acceptability" of a challenged punishment, guided by "objective factors to the maximum possible extent." Coker v. Georgia, 433 U.S. 584, 592, 597, 97 S.Ct. 2861, 2866, 2869, 53 L.Ed.2d 982 (1977) (plurality opinion). Thus it is firmly within the "historic process of constitutional adjudication" for courts to consider, through a "discriminating evaluation" of all available evidence, whether a particular means of carrying out the death penalty is "barbaric" and unnecessary in light of currently available alternatives. Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S., at 420, 430, 92 S.Ct., at 2819, 2824 (POWELL, J., dissenting).

What are the objective factors by which courts should evaluate the constitutionality of a challenged method of punishment? First and foremost, the Eighth Amendment prohibits "the unnecessary and wanton infliction of pain." Gregg v. Georgia, supra, 428 U.S., at 173, 96 S.Ct., at 2925 (opinion of Stewart, POWELL, and STEVENS, JJ.). See also Coker v. Georgia, supra, 433 U.S., at 592, 97 S.Ct., at 2866 (plurality opinion) (a punishment is excessive if it is "nothing more than the purposeless and needless imposition of pain and suffering"); Louisiana ex rel. Francis v. Resweber, 329 U.S. 459, 463, 67 S.Ct., 374, 376, 91 L.Ed. 422 (1947) ("The traditional humanity of modern Anglo-American law forbids the infliction of unnecessary pain in the execution of the death sentence"). The Court has never accepted the proposition that notions of deterrence or retribution might legitimately be served through the infliction of pain beyond that which is minimally necessary to terminate an individual's life.⁸ Thus in explaining the obvious unconstitutionality of such ancient practices as disembowelling while alive, drawing and quartering, public dissection, burning alive at the stake, crucifixion, and breaking at the wheel, the Court has emphasized that the Eighth Amendment forbids "inhuman and barbarous" methods of execution that go at all beyond "the mere extinguishment of life" and cause "torture or a lingering death." In re Kemmler, 136 U.S., at 447, 10 S.Ct., at 933. It is beyond debate that the Amendment proscribes all forms of "unnecessary cruelty" that cause gratuitous "terror, pain, or disgrace." Wilkerson v. Utah, 99 U.S. 130, 135-136, 9 Otto 130, 135-136, 25 L.Ed. 345 (1879).⁹

The Eighth Amendment's protection of "the dignity of man," Trop v. Dulles, supra, 356 U.S., at 100, 78 S.Ct., at 597 (plurality opinion), extends beyond prohibiting the unnecessary infliction of pain when extinguishing life. Civilized standards, for example, require a minimization of physical...