Facts & Research

United States Supreme Court

In the 1970s, the U.S. Supreme Court found the application of the death penalty unconstitutional, but allowed executions to resume under revised laws four years later. Today, the Court often faces questions on the constitutionality of particular aspects of the death-penalty system.

Overview

The Supreme Court is the final arbiter of whether the con­sti­tu­tion is being fol­lowed. States may be more pro­tec­tive of indi­vid­ual rights than required under the fed­er­al con­sti­tu­tion, but they can­not be less pro­tec­tive. In par­tic­u­lar, the Supreme Court is respon­si­ble for ensur­ing that state use of the death penal­ty adheres to our fun­da­men­tal rights. Court rul­ings can involve the meth­ods of exe­cu­tion used, the com­pe­ten­cy of defense coun­sel, the selec­tion of juries, the behav­ior of the pros­e­cu­tion, and many oth­er mat­ters pro­tect­ed by the right to due process.

In the ear­li­er his­to­ry of the coun­try, the Supreme Court left much of the prac­tice of the death penal­ty and oth­er pun­ish­ments to the states’ dis­cre­tion, rarely rul­ing on whether any prac­tice should be con­sid­ered cru­el and unusu­al. In recent decades, the Court has reg­u­lar­ly con­sid­ered mul­ti­ple cap­i­tal cas­es each term. Some of these cas­es arise from appeals of state rul­ings involv­ing the U.S. con­sti­tu­tion, oth­ers are result of fed­er­al deci­sions on both state and fed­er­al death penal­ty matters.

At Issue

The key ques­tion for the Supreme Court is whether the death penal­ty itself con­tin­ues to be con­sti­tu­tion­al in light of its rare use and its rejec­tion by large seg­ments of soci­ety. Recent rev­e­la­tions about the risks of exe­cut­ing inno­cent defen­dants, racial bias in its appli­ca­tion, and the lengthy time inmates spend on death row, has led soci­ety to rethink its sup­port of the death penal­ty. Some Justices have called for a com­pre­hen­sive review of the prac­tice. The make-up of the Court is like­ly to deter­mine when such a case might be con­sid­ered and how the Court will rule.

What DPIC Offers

DPIC has sum­maries of the impor­tant death penal­ty cas­es decid­ed by the Supreme Court in the mod­ern era. The opin­ions of indi­vid­ual Justices on the prac­tice of the death penal­ty in the U.S. are high­light­ed. Cases that the Court has decid­ed to hear but have not yet been argued are pre­viewed on the website.

News & Developments


News

Nov 04, 2024

United States Supreme Court Sends Case of Alabama Death-Sentenced Prisoner Back to 11th Circuit Court of Appeals

On November 4, 2024, the United States Supreme Courts released its order in the case of Hamm v. Smith, 604 U.S. _​_​_​(2024). The peti­tion for cer­tio­rari, filed by the State of Alabama last year, involved a pris­on­er named Joseph Clifton Smith whose death sen­tence was vacat­ed in 2021 after a United States dis­trict court found he had intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty. Mr. Smith had tak­en five IQ tests, four of which placed his IQ in the low- to mid-70s, the range gen­er­al­ly accept­ed by experts to be…

Read More

News

Oct 18, 2024

Discussions with DPIC Podcast: Professor Steve Vladeck on the Supreme Court’s Death Penalty Shift

In this month’s episode of Discussions with DPIC, Executive Director Robin Maher speaks with Steve Vladeck, a Georgetown law pro­fes­sor and expert on the Supreme Court. Professor Vladeck is the author of The Shadow Docket: How the Supreme Court Uses Stealth Rulings to Amass Power and Undermine the Republic, released in 2023, as well as the week­ly newslet­ter One First, which breaks down the Court’s rul­ings and his­to­ry. Professor Vladeck explains why the Court’s treat­ment of…

Read More
Professor Stephen Vladeck, Charles Alan Wright Chair in Federal Courts, University of Texas School of Law, participating in a session on the United States Supreme Court entitled "For Life" at Open Congress 2023 at The Texas Tribune Festival in Austin, Texas, United States.

News

Oct 09, 2024

A Meaningless Ritual”? U.S. Supreme Court Agrees to Decide Whether Ruben Gutierrez Can Challenge Texas DNA Testing Procedures to Prove His Innocence

On Friday, October 4, the Supreme Court agreed to hear argu­ments in Gutierrez v. Saenz, a case regard­ing death-sen­tenced Texas pris­on­er Ruben Gutierrez’s abil­i­ty to sue the state for DNA test­ing in sup­port of his inno­cence claim. The Court had issued a stay to Mr. Gutierrez on July 16, just twen­ty min­utes before his sched­uled exe­cu­tion. Mr. Gutierrez was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death in 1999 for the mur­der and rob­bery of an 85-year-old woman but has long main­tained his innocence.

Read More

News

Oct 08, 2024

United States Supreme Court Will Consider Significance of Prosecutor’s Confession of Error in Glossip v. Oklahoma

On October 9, 2024, the United States Supreme Court will hear oral argu­ments in Glossip v. Oklahoma, when the Court will con­sid­er mul­ti­ple ques­tions relat­ed to Richard Glossip’s con­vic­tion and death sen­tence. This is Mr. Glossip’s sec­ond trip to the Supreme Court; the first occurred in 2015 in con­nec­tion with his method of exe­cu­tion chal­lenge. Mr. Glossip has always main­tained his inno­cence of the 1997 mur­der for hire” crime that sent him to death row. In the inter­ven­ing years, he has…

Read More