Which U.S. Supreme Court case ruled that the death penalty is not inherently unconstitutional?

Gregg v. Georgia ruled that the death penalty is not inherently unconstitutional under the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments.

The decision came after Furman v. Georgia in 1972, when the Supreme Court struck down existing capital-sentencing procedures as arbitrary. States rewrote their laws to guide juries, separate the guilt and penalty phases, and provide meaningful appellate review. Gregg challenged Georgia’s revised system after receiving a death sentence for murder and armed robbery.

In 1976, the Court upheld Georgia’s guided-discretion framework, along with related schemes from Florida and Texas. The plurality concluded that capital punishment itself could serve retribution and deterrence and was not automatically cruel and unusual. But the Court also required safeguards against arbitrary sentencing; mandatory death penalties were invalidated in companion cases such as Woodson v. North Carolina.

Gregg did not declare every death sentence constitutional. Later decisions restricted capital punishment for particular defendants and offenses, including people with intellectual disability in Atkins v. Virginia and people who committed crimes as juveniles in Roper v. Simmons. Furman and Gregg therefore mark two different stages of modern death-penalty doctrine.