''Godfrey v. Georgia'', 446 U.S. 420 (1980), was a

United States Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...

case in which the Court held that a

death sentence Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that ...

could not be granted for a

murder Murder is the unlawful killing of another human without justification or valid excuse, especially the unlawful killing of another human with malice aforethought. ("The killing of another person without justification or excuse, especially the ...

when the only aggravating factor was that the murder was found to be "outrageously or wantonly vile." The Court reversed and remanded the Georgia death penalty sentence because, under '' Furman v. Georgia'', such a factor did not help sentencing judges or juries avoid arbitrary and capricious infliction of the death penalty.

External links

* United States Supreme Court cases Capital punishment in Georgia (U.S. state) 1980 in Georgia (U.S. state) 1980 in United States case law United States Supreme Court cases of the Burger Court United States death penalty case law {{SCOTUS-stub