Godfrey v. Georgia 446 U.S. 420

Case citation

Case citation is the system used in many countries to identify the decisions in past court cases, either in special series of books called reporters or law reports, or in a 'neutral' form which will identify a decision wherever it was reported...

 (1980) is a United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 Supreme Court case in which the Court held that a death sentence

Death Sentence

Death Sentence is a short story by the American science-fiction writer Isaac Asimov. It was first published in the November 1943 issue of Astounding Science Fiction and reprinted in the 1972 collection The Early Asimov.-Plot summary:...

 could not be granted for a murder

Murder

Murder is the unlawful killing, with malice aforethought, of another human being, and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide...

 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

Furman v. Georgia

Furman v. Georgia, was a United States Supreme Court decision that ruled on the requirement for a degree of consistency in the application of the death penalty. The case led to a de facto moratorium on capital punishment throughout the United States, which came to an end when Gregg v. Georgia was...

, such a factor did not help sentencing judges or juries avoid arbitrary and capricious infliction of the death penalty.