Booth v. Maryland 1987

• Author: Daniel Brannen, Richard Hanes, Elizabeth Shaw
• Pages: 270-274

Contenidos

• Killing for Drugs.
• Focus on the Criminal.
• Make the Punishment Fit the Crime.
• Impact.
• Suggestions for further reading.

Page 270

Petitioner: John Booth

Respondent: State of Maryland

Petitioner's Claim: That Maryland violated the Eighth Amendment by letting the jury hear evidence about how his crime affected his victim's family.

Chief Lawyer for Petitioner: George E. Burns, Jr.

Chief Lawyer for Respondent: Charles O. Monk II, Deputy Attorney General of Maryland

Justices for the Court: Harry A. Blackmun, William J. Brennan, Jr., Thurgood Marshall, Lewis F. Powell, Jr., John Paul Stevens

Justices Dissenting: Sandra Day O'Connor, William H. Rehnquist, Antonin Scalia, Byron R. White

Date of Decision: June 15, 1987

Decision: The Supreme Court reversed Booth's death sentence.

Significance: With Booth, the Supreme Court said it is cruel and unusual to let juries hear evidence about how a murder affected the victim's family.

Using the death penalty, governments kill people as punishment for crime. In the United States, most states allow the death penalty for first degree murder. Before 1972, most states allowed juries to decide death

Page 271

penalty cases with no guidance. Juries had total control to choose life or death for defendants who committed murder.

The Eighth Amendment prevents the government from using cruel and unusual punishments. In Furman v. Georgia (1972), the U.S. Supreme Court said death penalty laws that give juries total control are cruel and unusual. The Court said juries must be guided to decide between life or death based on the defendant's character, his background, and the circumstances of the murder he committed.

As violent crime increased in the 1980s, a victims rights movement began in the United States. The movement's goal was to make sure the criminal justice system takes care of victims instead of just protecting the rights of defendants and criminals. During this movement, many states passed laws allowing juries to hear victim impact evidence during the sentencing phase of death penalty cases. Victim impact evidence is information that tells the jury how a murder has affected the victim's family and community. In Booth v. Maryland, the U.S. Supreme Court had to decide whether victim impact evidence violates the Eighth Amendment.

Killing for Drugs

Irvin Bronstein, 78, and his wife Rose, 75, lived a happy life of retirement in West Baltimore, Maryland. John Booth lived three houses away in the same...