Payne V. Tennessee - Reasoning

Reasoning

The court's decision stated a number of strands of reasons for its rationale in deciding this case:

  1. The sentencer has the right to consider all relevant evidence, with the rules of evidence.
  2. The principle that punishment should fit the crime is relevant here, and this was a particularly aggravated and savage murder.
  3. That stare decisis is "not an inexorable command", and the Supreme Court, since Marbury v. Madison (1803) has decided what the law is.
  4. Because the defendant has the right to present mitigating evidence at the sentencing phase, the prosecution should be able to present aggravating evidence about the victim. (Justice Stevens, in dissent, characterizes this argument as a non sequitur. The defendant has constitutional rights because he is on trial - the victim is not on trial and has no constitutional rights in the proceeding.)
  5. The trial was fair in all respects, and mitigating evidence ought to be presented with damaging evidence when available.

Three Justices dissented: John Paul Stevens, Thurgood Marshall, and Harry Blackmun.

Read more about this topic:  Payne V. Tennessee

Famous quotes containing the word reasoning:

    “The information links are like nerves that pervade and help to animate the human organism. The sensors and monitors are analogous to the human senses that put us in touch with the world. Data bases correspond to memory; the information processors perform the function of human reasoning and comprehension. Once the postmodern infrastructure is reasonably integrated, it will greatly exceed human intelligence in reach, acuity, capacity, and precision.”
    —Albert Borgman, U.S. educator, author. Crossing the Postmodern Divide, ch. 4, University of Chicago Press (1992)

    “The best road to correct reasoning is by physical science; the way to trace effects to causes is through physical science; the only corrective, therefore, of superstition is physical science.”
    —Frances Wright (1795–1852)

    “The method of authority will always govern the mass of mankind; and those who wield the various forms of organized force in the state will never be convinced that dangerous reasoning ought not to be suppressed in some way.”
    —Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914)