Gregg v. Georgia, Proffitt v. Florida, Jurek v. Texas, Woodson v. North Carolina, and Roberts v. Louisiana, 428 U.S. 153 (1976), is a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court.

The court set forth the two main features that capital sentencing procedures must employ in order to comply with the Eighth Amendment ban on "cruel and unusual punishments".

However the Court responded that "The most marked indication of society's endorsement of the death penalty for murder is the legislative response to Furman."

[citation needed] The Court also found that the death penalty "comports with the basic concept of human dignity at the core of the [Eighth] Amendment".

"[citation needed] The Court was determined to simultaneously save capital punishment in the United States and impose some reasoned basis for carrying it out.

Although capital punishment, per se, was not found by the Court to be cruel and unusual, it must still be carried out in a manner consistent with the evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society.

In the Court's view, the country's history with capital punishment suggests that those evolving standards of decency could not tolerate a return to the mandatory death penalty for murder that had prevailed in medieval England.

Finally, the jury could respond to mitigating factors about the crime or the criminal and withhold the death penalty even for convicted first-degree murderers.

The question the Court confronted in these five cases was whether the procedures crafted by Georgia, Florida, Texas, North Carolina, and Louisiana adequately minimized that risk.

[citation needed] Although in most criminal cases the judge decides and imposes the sentence, "jury sentencing has been considered desirable in capital cases in order to maintain a link between contemporary community values and the penal system—a link without which the determination of punishment could hardly reflect the evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society."

Although this problem may not be totally correctible, the Court trusted that the guidance given the jury by the aggravating factors or other special-verdict questions would assist it in deciding on a sentence.

This review must not be a rubber stamp; there must be evidence in the state's decisional law that the court takes seriously its responsibility to ensure that the sentence imposed was not arbitrary.

[citation needed] Under the Georgia scheme (which generally followed the Model Penal Code), after the defendant was convicted of, or pleaded guilty to, a capital crime (under the first part of the bifurcated trial proceeding),[c] the second part of the bifurcated trial involved an additional hearing at which the jury received additional evidence in aggravation and mitigation.

First, at the sentencing hearing of a capital felon,[f] the jury determined whether one or more aggravating factors exist, drawing on a list very similar to Georgia's.

[citation needed] The Court concluded that, as the sentencer's discretion was limited in an objective fashion and directed in a reviewable manner, Florida's scheme also adequately narrowed the class of defendants eligible for the death penalty.

[citation needed] Texas's scheme differed considerably from that suggested by the Model Penal Code and followed in large part by Georgia and Florida.

In order to narrow the class of death penalty-eligible defendants as required by Furman, the Texas Legislature did not adopt the "aggravating factors" approach outlined by the Model Penal Code.

[g] The Court concluded that this special issue would allow for the same extensive consideration of mitigating evidence as the Georgia and Florida schemes.

Thus, Texas's death penalty scheme, though considerably different from Florida's and Georgia's, also complied with the Furman requirements and was thus also approved by the Court.

[citation needed] The defendant in this case, Jerry Jurek (TDCJ #508), would ultimately see his sentence commuted to life in prison.

[citation needed] Although Louisiana had created a class of death-eligible crimes somewhat narrower than North Carolina had, it still had a mandatory death penalty for a significant range of crimes, which were aggravated rape, aggravated kidnapping and treason; the lack of discretion in sentencing caused the Louisiana scheme to suffer the same unconstitutional infirmities as North Carolina's.

In every subsequent capital case that would come before the Court during their tenures, they would refer to their opinions in Gregg in support of their vote against the death penalty.

[citation needed] Justice William Rehnquist would have upheld North Carolina's and Louisiana's mandatory death penalties.

He disputed the historical evidence adduced in support of the claim that American juries dislike mandatory death penalties.

Major subsequent developments include forbidding the death penalty for rape (Coker v. Georgia, Kennedy v. Louisiana), restricting the death penalty in cases of felony murder (Enmund v. Florida), exempting the mentally handicapped (Atkins v. Virginia) and juvenile murderers (Roper v. Simmons) from the death penalty, removing virtually all limitations on the presentation of mitigating evidence (Lockett v. Ohio, Holmes v. South Carolina), requiring precision in the definition of aggravating factors (Godfrey v. Georgia, Walton v. Arizona), and requiring the jury to decide whether aggravating factors have been proved beyond a reasonable doubt (Ring v. Arizona).

Two years earlier, Stevens had come out in opposition to the death penalty, writing that his vote in the Gregg cases had been made out of respect for precedent within the court that held capital punishment to be constitutional.