stating that “five Members of the Court have now expressly recognized that death is a different kind of punishment from any other” and that “[i]t is of vital importance to the defendant and to the community that any decision to impose the death sentence be, and appear to be, based on reason rather than caprice or emotion.”
How later courts described this case
- stating that “five Members of the Court have now expressly recognized that death is a different kind of punishment from any other” and that “[i]t is of vital importance to the defendant and to the community that any decision to impose the death sentence be, and appear to be, based on reason rather than caprice or emotion.”
- holding only that “the record on appeal [must] disclose to the reviewing court the considerations which motivated the death sentence,” but it does not require that the trial court identify the precise mitigating factors it weighed
- holding that the sentencing process “must satisfy the requirements of the Due Process Clause” and that a criminal defendant “has a legitimate interest in the character of the procedure which leads to the imposition of sentence”
- holding that a capital defendant’s due process rights were violated because he was sentenced without being provided access to information relevant to the trial court’s sentencing decision
Written by the judges who cited it.
Later courts went against this
Declined to follow by Sivak v. State, 112 Idaho 197 (1986)
While we consider it both prudent and equitably incumbent upon the judge to make such disclosures, we decline to apply Gardner so broadly as to mandate it as a matter of constitutional necessity in this case.
Distinguished
Distinguished by Smith v. State, 1995 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 26 (1995)
While we believe Simmons is distinguishable based upon this fact alone, we also believe the underlying rationale for the Supreme Court in Simmons based upon Gardner, supra, is inapplicable to Texas jurisprudence.
Distinguished by Byrne v. Butler, 845 F.2d 501 (1988)
Gardner, therefore, is inapposite to the case at bar.
Distinguished by State v. Paaaina, 67 Haw. 408 (1984)
Gardner is distinguishable on two bases.
Distinguished by Alpha Otis O'Daniel Stephens v. Walter Zant, Superintendent, 631 F.2d 397 (1980)
For the reasons set out below, we hold that Gardner is not controlling here and that petitioner’s sentence should not be overturned on this ground.
The opinion
*371 Mr. Justice Rehnquist,
dissenting.
Had I joined the plurality opinion in last Term’s Woodson v. North Carolina, 428 U. S. 280 (1976), I would join the concurring opinion of my Brother White in this case. But if capital punishment is not cruel and unusual under the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments, as the Court held in that case, the use of particular sentencing procedures, never previously held unfair under the Due Process Clause, in a case where the death sentence is imposed cannot convert that sentence into a cruel and unusual punishment. The prohibition of the Eighth Amendment relates to the character of the punishment, and not to the process by which it is imposed. I would therefore affirm the judgment of the Supreme Court of Florida.