## Facts

- Troy Leon Gregg was charged with armed robbery and murder for killing and robbing two men.
- Under Georgia’s post-*Furman* bifurcated capital procedure, a jury convicted Gregg of two counts of armed robbery and two counts of murder.
- In the separate penalty phase, the jury was instructed it could recommend death or life imprisonment and could consider mitigating and aggravating circumstances.
- The jury was instructed it could not impose death unless it found beyond a reasonable doubt at least one statutory aggravating circumstance.
- The jury found two aggravating circumstances: the murders were committed during the armed robberies and for the purpose of taking the victims’ money and automobile.
- The jury returned death sentences for the murders.

## Issues

1. Whether the death penalty is categorically “cruel and unusual punishment” barred by the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments.
2. Whether Georgia’s revised capital sentencing statute unconstitutionally permits arbitrary and capricious imposition of death sentences.

## Decision

- The Court affirmed the constitutionality of capital punishment in principle and upheld Georgia’s capital sentencing framework as applied to Gregg.
- The Court held the death penalty is not per se unconstitutional for deliberate murder.
- The Court held Georgia’s scheme sufficiently limited and guided jury discretion to avoid the arbitrariness condemned in *Furman*.
- The Court emphasized the statute’s bifurcated trial, requirement of a beyond-a-reasonable-doubt finding of at least one statutory aggravator, allowance for individualized consideration of mitigating evidence, and mandatory appellate review of death sentences.
- Justices Brennan and Marshall dissented, concluding capital punishment is always unconstitutional.

## Legal Principles

- The Eighth Amendment’s meaning is informed by “evolving standards of decency,” assessed in part through contemporary legislative and jury judgments.
- Capital punishment is not inherently disproportionate for intentional murder when imposed through procedures that reduce arbitrariness.
- A capital sentencing system may satisfy the Eighth Amendment when it channels discretion by (1) narrowing death eligibility through specified aggravating circumstances found beyond a reasonable doubt, (2) permitting consideration of mitigating evidence for individualized sentencing, and (3) providing meaningful appellate review, including review for arbitrariness and disproportion.
- Mandatory death penalty schemes that foreclose individualized consideration and mercy are unconstitutional.

## Conclusion

The Court upheld the death penalty as constitutionally permissible for deliberate murder and sustained Georgia’s guided-discretion capital statute because it narrowed death eligibility, allowed individualized mitigation, and subjected death sentences to meaningful appellate review to prevent arbitrary imposition.


Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153 (1976)