The Broken Machinery of Death.

No longer can a jury wantonly and freakishly impose the death sentence; it is always circumscribed by the legislative guidelines.

--Gregg v. Georgia

Twenty-five years ago this month, on July 2, 1976, the U.S. Supreme Court voted 7-2 in Gregg v. Georgia to reinstate the death penalty after a brief official hiatus. Implicit in the Gregg decision was the optimistic belief that the many problems identified by a previous Supreme Court decision, Furman v. Georgia, could be fixed. In 1972 the Furman Court had struck down hundreds of state laws that the justices deemed ...

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