# Gardner v. Florida

> Supreme Court of the United States · March 22, 1977 · 430 U.S. 349

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9426719

## Case

- **Full name:** Gardner v. Florida
- **Court:** Supreme Court of the United States
- **Decided:** March 22, 1977
- **Citations:** 430 U.S. 349; 97 S. Ct. 1197; 51 L. Ed. 2d 393; 1977 U.S. LEXIS 62
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Dissent by Rehnquist
- **Judges:** Stevens, Court'S, Stewart, Powell, Burger, White, Blackmun, Brennan, Marshall, Rehnquist
- **Cited by:** 1,481 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- **Yellow flag:** Declined to follow by Sivak v. State, 112 Idaho 197 (1986).
- Negative treatments: 1
- Distinguished by: 4
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9426719

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- 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, b…
- 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
- holding that it was a due process violation where the judge, in issuing the death sentence against the recommendation of the jury, considered a confidential presentencing report that was not considered by the jury

## Opinion text

*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.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9426719. Public record. Not legal advice.