Upon being convicted of rape and other charges, Coker was sentenced to death. Coker v. Georgia433 U.S. 584, 97 S. Ct. 2861, 53 L. Ed. The Georgia Supreme Court affirmed both the conviction and sentence. In Furman v. Georgia, supra, at 431, 92 S.Ct., at 2824, Mr. Justice POWELL, in dissent stated: '(W)here, as here, the language of the applicable (constitutional) provision provides great leeway and where the underlying social policies are felt to be of vital importance, the temptation to read personal preference into the Constitution is understandably great. No. Whatever our individual views as to the wisdom of capital punishment, I cannot agree that it is constitutionally impermissible for a state legislature to make the 'solemn judgment' to impose such penalty for the crime of rape. As noted in Snider v. Peyton, 356 F.2d 626, 627 (CA4 1966), '(t)here is extreme variation in the degree of culpability of rapists.' But contrary to implications in THE CHIEF JUSTICE's dissent, my opinion in Furman did emphasize that the proportionality test as to rape should be applied on a case-by-case basis, noting that in some cases the death sentence would be 'grossly excessive.' The court shall accumulate the records of all capital felony cases in which sentence was imposed after January 1, 1970, or such earlier date as the court may deem appropriate. While only three Justices have joined Mr. Justice WHITE in this portion of his opinion, see separate opinion of Mr. Justice POWELL, ante, p. 601, I take this to be the view of the Court in light of Mr. Justice BRENNAN's and Mr. Justice MARSHALL's statements joining the judgment. Thus, the Court had no place dictating how the states might make law in the criminal arena. . Current penal theories admit, indeed insist upon, the need for permanent incapacitation in such cases. Many States provide an increased penalty for habitual criminality. In 1974, while serving three consecutive life sentences and others for brutal crimes including murder, attempted murder, at least two rapes, and kidnapping, Ehrlich Anthony Coker … Coker had done this after escaping a Georgia jail. The same night of the escape, the Defendant committed various offenses such as armed robbery, motor vehicle theft, kidnaping, and rape. Carver. [6], But objective evidence does not dictate the outcome of the Court's proportionality analysis. § 16-52 (Supp. In the death penalty case of Coker v. Georgian, Erlich Anthony Coker, was sentenced to death for raping and kidnapping a Elnita Carver. Ehrlich Anthony COKER, Petitioner, v. State of GEORGIA. ', 'In all capital cases, other than those of homicide, when the verdict is guilty, with a recommendation to mercy, it shall be legal and shall be a recommendation to the judge of imprisonment for life. A punishment might fail the test on either ground. another, for the purpose of receiving money or any other thing of monetary value. 'The value of capital punishment as a deterrent of crime is a complex factual issue the resolution of which properly rests with the legislatures, which can evaluate the results of statistical studies in terms of their own local conditions and with a flexibility of approach that is not available to the courts. 591-600; 600; 600-601; 601. 593-597. 3001, 49 L.Ed.2d 974 (1976). 2978, 49 L.Ed.2d 944 (1976), which have established the controlling general principles. '(c) The statutory instructions as determined by the trial judge to be warranted by the evidence shall be given in charge and in writing to the jury for its deliberation. It is difficult to believe that Georgia would long remain alone in punishing rape by death if the next decade demonstrated a drastic reduction in its incidence of rape, an increased cooperation by rape victims in the apprehension and prosecution of rapists, and a greater confidence in the rule of law on the part of the populace. "[7], The fact that the jury had found that two aggravating factors applied to Coker's crime (his prior convictions and the fact that the rape was committed during the course of a robbery) did not change the Court's conclusion. . The clear implication of today's holding appears to be that the death penalty may be properly imposed only as to crimes resulting in death of the victim. United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Capital Punishment 40, 86 (1968). § 2114. § 200.363 (1975). If the Court was serious about sanctioning the continued use of the death penalty, it should allow states to use it in appropriate circumstances. Florida,[Note 2] Mississippi,[Note 3] and Tennessee[Note 4] had capital rape statutes authorizing the death penalty or life imprisonment for the rape of children. It would be unfortunate indeed if the effect of today's holding were to inhibit States and the Federal Government from experimenting with various remedies including possibly imposition of the penalty of death to prevent and deter such crimes. In sum, once the Court has held that 'the punishment of death does not invariably violate the Constitution,' Gregg v. Georgia, supra, 428 U.S., at 169, 96 S.Ct., at 2923, it seriously impinges upon the State's legislative judgment to hold that it may not impose such sentence upon an individual who has shown total and repeated disregard for the welfare, safety, personal integrity, and human worth of others, and who seemingly cannot be deterred from continuing such conduct.5 I therefore would hold that the death sentence here imposed is within the power reserved to the State and leave for another day the question of whether such sanction would be proper under other circumstances. Although human lives are in the balance, it must be remembered that failure to allow flexibility may also jeopardize human lives those of the victims of undeterred criminal conduct. The plurality opinion goes to great lengths to consider societal mores and attitudes toward the generic crime of rape and the punishment for it; however, the opinion gives little attention to the special circumstances which bear directly on whether imposition of the death penalty is an appropriate societal response to Coker's criminal acts: (a) On account of his prior offenses, Coker is already serving such lengthy prison sentences that imposition of additional periods of imprisonment would have no incremental punitive effect; (b) by his life pattern Coker has shown that he presents a particular danger to the safety, welfare, and chastity of women, and on his record the likelihood is therefore great that he will repeat his crime at the first opportunity; (c) petitioner escaped from prison, only a year and a half after he commenced serving his latest sentences; he has nothing to lose by further escape attempts; and (d) should he again succeed in escaping from prison, it is reasonably predictable that he will repeat his pattern of attacks on women and with impunity since the threat of added prison sentences will be no deterrent. Coker was convicted of rape, armed robbery, and the other offenses. Collins v. State, 550 S.W.2d 643 (Tenn.1977). We cannot avoid taking judicial notice that crimes such as airplane hijacking, kidnaping, and mass terrorist activity constitute a serious and increasing danger to the safety of the public. Carver in addition to stealing a car. It is arguable that many prospective rapists would be deterred by the possibility that they could suffer death for their offense; it is also arguable that the death penalty would have only minimal deterrent effect.11 It may well be that rape victims would become more willing to report the crime and aid in the apprehension of the criminals if they knew that community disapproval of rapists was sufficiently strong to inflict the extreme penalty; or perhaps they would be reluctant to cooperate in the prosecution of rapists if they knew that a conviction might result in the imposition of the death penalty. The current judgment of some Members of this Court has undergone significant change in the short time since Furman.14 Social change on great issues generally reveals itself in small increments, and the 'current judgment' of many States could well be altered on the basis of Georgia's experience, were we to allow its statute to stand.15. §§ 97-3-19, 97-3-21, 97-25-55, 99-17-20 (Supp. This special danger is demonstrated by the very record in this case. In Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153, 231, 96 S.Ct. To what extent we have left States 'elbowroom' to protect innocent persons from depraved human beings like Coker remains in doubt. In order for Georgia's legislative program to develop it must be given time to take effect so that data may be evaluated for comparison with the experience of States which have not enacted death penalty statutes. 75-5444 •x Washington, D. C. Monday, March 28, 1977 The above-entitled matter carne on for argument at 10s03 o'clock, a.m. BEFORE s WARREN E. BURGER, Chief Justice of the United States WILLIAM J. BRENNAN, JR., Associate Justice POTTER STEWART, Associate Justice BYRON R. … I accept that the Eighth Amendment's concept of disproportionality bars the death penalty for minor crimes. He disagreed with the Court's conclusion that there were no circumstances under which it was a proportional response to crime. Today, the Court repudiates the State's solemn judgment on how best to deal with the crime of rape before anyone can know whether the death penalty is an effective deterrent for one of the most horrible of all crimes. § 794.011(2) (1976); Miss.Code Ann. ).8 This seriously strains and distorts our federal system, removing much of the flexibility from which it has drawn strength for two centuries. 20 (1929); 82 A.L.R. [26] Before his sentence was overturned, Andrews was the last man on death row who had not murdered anyone. In 1925, 18 States, the District of Columbia, and the Federal Government authorized capital punishment for the rape of an adult female.5 By 1971 just prior to the decision in Furman v. Georgia, that number had declined, but not substantially, to 16 States plus the Federal Government.6 Furman then invalidated most of the capital punishment statutes in this country, including the rape statutes, because, among other reasons, of the manner in which the death penalty was imposed and utilized under those laws. Erlich Anthony Research the case of Erlich Anthony Coker v. State of Georgia (1977), which is commonly referred to as Coker v. Georgia. (Emphasis added.). Ehrlich Anthony Coker, Petitioner, On Writ of Certiorari to the Su-v. preme Court of Georgia. 97 S. Ct. 2861; 53 L. Ed. . §§ 14-17, 14-21 (Supp. Atkins v. Virginia, June 20, 2002 2. While serving various sentences for murder, rape, kidnaping, and aggravated assault, petitioner escaped from a Georgia prison and, in the course of committing an armed robbery and other offenses, raped an adult woman. However, even were one to give the most charitable acceptance to the plurality's statistical analysis, it still does not, to my mind, support its conclusion. Rape thus is not a crime 'light years' removed from murder in the degree of its heinousness; it certainly poses a serious potential danger to the life and safety of innocent victims apart from the devastating psychic consequences. Mr. Justice POWELL concluded that death is disproportionate punishment for the crime of raping an adult woman where, as here, the crime was not committed with excessive brutality and the victim did not sustain serious or lasting injury. Once this need is recognized, the death penalty as a means of incapacitation for the violent psychopath can hardly be objected to on grounds that will survive rational scrutiny, if the use of the death penalty in any situation is to be permitted. The Georgia court had set aside one, leaving five death sentences for rape intact from among all the rape convictions obtained since Furman. §§ 16-72, 16-80 (1962); Tenn. Code Ann. 2726, 2839, 33 L.Ed.2d 346 (1972) (dissenting opinion), where he stated: 'While I reject each of (petitioners') attempts to establish specific categories of cases in which the death penalty may be deemed excessive, I view them as groping toward what is for me the appropriate application of the Eighth Amendment. 1071, 1081 (1964). is an excessive penalty' for the perpetrator of this heinous offense.7 This, the Court holds, is true even though in Georgia the death penalty may be imposed only where the rape is coupled with one or more aggravating circumstances. Ante, at 597. I concur in the judgment of the Court on the facts of this case, and also in the plurality's reasoning supporting the view that ordinarily death is disproportionate punishment for the crime of raping an adult woman. '(e) The court shall include in its decision a reference to those similar cases which it took into consideration. The Georgia courts sentenced Coker to death on the rape charge. § 3575(e)(1); Congress has also declared that a second conviction for assault on a mail carrier may be punished more seriously than a first such conviction, 18 U.S.C. [20][21] Daniel Coler was sentenced to death in 1978 in Florida for the rape of his daughter as a child. After twice raping this 16-year-old victim, he stripped her, severely beat her with a club, and dragged her into a wooded area where he left her for dead. Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution, felony murder (except for the actual killer), all nonhomicide crimes and crimes against the state, List of United States Supreme Court cases, volume 433, public domain material from this U.S government document, "BRENNAN, J., Concurring in the Judgment", "MARSHALL, J., Concurring in the Judgment", "POWELL, J., Concurring in the Judgment in Part, Dissenting in Part", "Convicted Rapist Returning To Ocala For Resentencing", "Court Overturns Rapist's Death Sentence", "Man Charged In Rape Of Daughter Set Free", "Judge Sentences Man To Death For A Rape", "State Death Row Loses Last Non-Murderer", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Coker_v._Georgia&oldid=1005318937, United States Supreme Court cases of the Burger Court, Cruel and Unusual Punishment Clause and death penalty case law, Capital punishment in Georgia (U.S. state), Wikipedia articles incorporating text from public domain works of the United States Government, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. See, e. g., Wis.Stat.Ann. The law of negligence, for example, is replete with issues requiring the jury to determine degrees of culpability and the extent or permanency of physical and psychological injury. In 1974, Erlich Anthony Coker, serving a number of sentences for murder, rape, kidnapping, and assault, escaped from prison. [9], Justices Brennan[10] and Marshall[11] concurred in the judgment because the case struck down a death penalty, in keeping with their view that the death penalty is per se cruel and unusual punishment. P. 601. '(7) The offense of murder, rape, armed robbery or kidnapping was outrageously or wantonly vile, horrible or inhuman in that it involved torture, depravity of mind, or an aggravated battery to the victim. 155, 11 L.Ed.2d 119 (1963). Coker was granted a writ of certiorari, 429 U.S. 815, 97 S.Ct. § 39-3702 (1974). I dissent because I am not persuaded that such a bright line is appropriate. Of the 16 States in which rape had been a capital offense, only three provided the death penalty for rape of an adult woman in their revised statutes Georgia, North Carolina, and Louisiana. Statutory provisions in criminal justice applied in one part of the country can be carefully watched by other state legislatures, so that the experience of one State becomes available to all. Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S., at 411, 92 S.Ct., at 2815 (Blackmun, J., dissenting). A sentencing hearing was then conducted in accordance with the procedures dealt with at length in Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153, 96 S.Ct. 'Mitigating and aggravating circumstances; death penalty. [Note 1]. [8] Finally, even a deliberate killing does not merit a death sentence under Georgia law without the finding of aggravating factors. But rape is not a minor crime; hence the Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause does not give the Members of this Court license to engraft their conceptions of proper public policy onto the considered legislative judgments of the States. It is also established that imposing capital punishment, at least for murder, in accordance with the procedures provided under the Georgia statutes saves the sentence from the infirmities which led the Court to invalidate the prior Georgia capital punishment statute in Furman v. Georgia, supra. This casts serious doubt upon the constitutional validity of statutes imposing the death penalty for a variety of conduct which, though dangerous, may not necessarily result in any immediate death, e. g., treason, airplane hijacking, and kidnaping. In 1963, the figure was 17 of 50 states, almost all of them in the Southern and Western United States, as well as the District of Columbia and the federal government. 75‑5444. It is also true that the present rape occurred while Coker was committing armed robbery, a felony for which the Georgia statutes authorize the death penalty.15 But Coker was tried for the robbery offense as well as for rape and received a separate life sentence for this crime; the jury did not deem the robbery itself deserving of the death penalty, even though accompanied by the aggravating circumstance, which was stipulated, that Coker had been convicted of a prior capital crime.16. Only one year ago Mr. Justice White succinctly noted: '(D)eath finally forecloses the possibility that a prisoner will commit further crimes, whereas life imprisonment does not.' It is highly reprehensible, both in a moral sense and in its almost total contempt for the personal integrity and autonomy of the female victim and for the latter's privilege of choosing those with whom intimate relationships are to be established. § 14:30 (1974); Md.Code Ann., Art. After twice raping this 16-year-old victim, he stripped her, severely beat her with a club, and dragged her into a wooded area where he left her for dead. Rape is without doubt deserving of serious punishment; but in terms of moral depravity and of the injury to the person and to the public, it does not compare with murder, which does involve the unjustified taking of human life. The court ruled that the death penalty is unconstitutional in all cases that do not involve murder or crimes against the State. This obviously is not a negligible number; and the State argues that as a practical matter juries simply reserve the extreme sanction for extreme cases of rape and that recent experience surely does not prove that jurors consider the death penalty to be a disproportionate punishment for every conceivable instance of rape, no matter how aggravated. There are other aggravating circumstances provided in the statute, see n. 3, supra, but they are not applicable to rape. [1] A few states continued to have child rape statutes that authorized the death penalty. Mr. Justice MARSHALL, concurring in the judgment. 1071, 1080 (1964). It dismissed Alfred D. Leatherwood's death sentence on another basis, the fact that the Louisiana capital aggravators were written to apply only to capital murder and not to rape.[28]. Georgia upheld the constitutional validity of such punishment-enhancing statutes 1958 ) ; 438 erlich anthony coker, at 459, S.Ct! Commission of a felony he causes the death penalty for minor crimes, of... Added. ). ' e. g., Spencer v. Texas, 428 U.S. 325, 96 S.Ct ; Code! 410, 92 S.Ct., at 403, 92 S.Ct., at 2926 Coker threatened Carvers! Date of trial. ' physical attack it is not a mere physical attack it is myopic to sweeping! Rape can ever be punished by death, why is it relevant whether Mrs, 1974, petitioner, State... 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