Felony Murder and The Death Penalty in The United States

Felony Murder And The Death Penalty In The United States

The Supreme Court of the United States has held that the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution does not prohibit imposing the death penalty for felony murder. The Supreme Court has created a two-part test to determine when the death penalty is an appropriate punishment for felony murder. Under Enmund v. Florida, 458 U.S. 782 (1982), the death penalty may not be imposed on someone who did not kill, attempt to kill, or intend that a killing take place. However, under Tison v. Arizona, 481 U.S. 137 (1987), the death penalty may be imposed on someone who was a major participant in the underlying felony and acted with reckless indifference to human life.

Read more about Felony Murder And The Death Penalty In The United States:  Proportionality and Felony Murder, Justice Brennan On Those Who Do Not Intend To Kill

Famous quotes containing the words united states, felony, murder, death, penalty, united and/or states:

    Places where he might live and die and never hear of the United States, which make such a noise in the world,—never hear of America, so called from the name of a European gentleman.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    Publishers are notoriously slothful about numbers, unless they’re attached to dollar signs—unlike journalists, quarterbacks, and felony criminal defendents who tend to be keenly aware of numbers at all times.
    Hunter S. Thompson (b. 1939)

    Suddenly, she wasn’t drunk anymore. Her hand was steady and she was cool. Like somebody making funeral arrangements for a murder not yet committed.
    John Paxton (1911–1985)

    You don’t send a man to his death because you want a hero.
    Paddy Chayefsky (1923–1981)

    It is odd that the NCAA would place a school on probation for driving an athlete to class, or providing a loan, but would have no penalty for a school that violates Title IX, a federal law.
    Cardiss L. Collins (b. 1931)

    And hereby hangs a moral highly applicable to our own trustee-ridden universities, if to nothing else. If we really wanted liberty of speech and thought, we could probably get it—Spain fifty years ago certainly had a longer tradition of despotism than has the United States—but do we want it? In these years we will see.
    John Dos Passos (1896–1970)

    If the dignity as well as the prestige and influence of the United States are not to be wholly sacrificed, we must protect those who, in foreign ports, display the flag or wear the colors of this Government against insult, brutality, and death, inflicted in resentment of the acts of their Government, and not for any fault of their own.
    Benjamin Harrison (1833–1901)