Decisions
Justice White wrote the plurality opinion in this case, on behalf of Justices Stewart, Blackmun, and Stevens. The plurality opinion denied that rape causes serious injury: "Although it may be accompanied by another crime, rape by definition does not include the death of or even the serious injury to another person."
Justices Brennan and Marshall concurred in the judgment because the case struck down a death penalty, in keeping with their view that the death penalty is per se cruel and unusual punishment.
Justice Powell concurred in the judgment, but emphasized that the death penalty may be appropriate for rape if there are aggravating circumstances.
Read more about this topic: Coker V. Georgia
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“The words of the Constitution ... are so unrestricted by their intrinsic meaning or by their history or by tradition or by prior decisions that they leave the individual Justice free, if indeed they do not compel him, to gather meaning not from reading the Constitution but from reading life.”
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