# Proffitt v. Florida

> Supreme Court of the United States · July 22, 1976 · 428 U.S. 242

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9426562

## Case

- **Full name:** Proffitt v. Florida
- **Court:** Supreme Court of the United States
- **Decided:** July 22, 1976
- **Citations:** 428 U.S. 242; 96 S. Ct. 2960; 49 L. Ed. 2d 913; 1976 U.S. LEXIS 83
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurrence by Blackmun
- **Judges:** Blackmun, Rehnquist, Stewart, White
- **Cited by:** 1,282 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- **Yellow flag:** Questioned by Douglas v. Wainwright, 714 F.2d 1532 (1983).
- Negative treatments: 1
- Distinguished by: 0
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9426562

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- holding that Fla. Stat. ง 921.141(6) (1981), which lists mitigating circumstances, does not restrict the sentencer's consideration of mitigating circumstances to those expressly listed in the statute
- stating that the Florida Supreme Court had imposed a constitutional construction on Florida’s “heinousness” aggravating factor by limiting it to the “ ‘conscienceless or pitiless crime which is unnecessarily torturous to the victim’ ” (quoting State v. Dixon, 283 So.2d 1, 9 (F…
- holding argument that “the prosecutor’s decision whether to charge a capital offense in the first place” rendered Florida’s death penalty unconstitutional represented “a fundamental misinterpretation” of Supreme Court precedent and rejecting such argument
- holding that a scheme which required the sentencer to determine whether mitigating circumstances were sufficient to outweigh aggravating circumstances adequately guided and channeled the sentencer's discretion

## Opinion text

Mr. Justice Blackmun,
concurring in the judgment.
I concur in the judgment. See Furman v. Georgia, 408 U. S. 238, 405-414 (1972) (Blackmun, J., dissenting), and id., at 375, 414 , and 465.

---

Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9426562. Public record. Not legal advice.