explaining that retribution as a justification for punishment "very much depends on the [defendant’s] culpability — -what [the defendant’s] intentions, expectations, and actions were” and that "American criminal law has long considered a defendant's intention — and therefore his moral guilt — to be critical to the degree of his criminal culpability” (internal marks omitted)
How later courts described this case
- explaining that retribution as a justification for punishment "very much depends on the [defendant’s] culpability — -what [the defendant’s] intentions, expectations, and actions were” and that "American criminal law has long considered a defendant's intention — and therefore his moral guilt — to be critical to the degree of his criminal culpability” (internal marks omitted)
- finding that “only a small minority of jurisdictions—eight—allow the death penalty to be imposed solely because the defendant somehow participated in a robbery in the course of which a murder was committed” to hold the Eighth Amendment prohibited sentence of death for a defendant who “did not commit and had no intention of committing or causing” deaths of robbery victims
- concluding that the Eighth Amendment does not permit imposition of the death penalty on a defendant "who aids and abets a felony in the course of which a murder is committed by others but who does not himself kill, attempt to kill, or intend that a killing take place or that lethal force will be employed"
- holding that the Eighth Amendment does not permit imposition of the death penalty on a defendant “who aids and abets a felony in the course of which murder is committed by others but who does not himself kill, attempt to kill, or intend that killing take place or that lethal force will be employed”
Written by the judges who cited it.
Distinguished
Distinguished by Orme v. State, 677 So. 2d 258 (1996)
Enmund is inapplicable because that opinion only addresses the question of coperpetrators who did not actually kill a victim.
Distinguished by Willie Lee Richmond v. Samuel A. Lewis, Director, Arizona Department of Corrections and Roger Crist, Superintendent of the Arizona State Prison, 948 F.2d 1473 (1992)
Id. at 798, 102 S.Ct. at 3377; see id. at 801, 102 S.Ct. at 3378. Enmund, however, is clearly distinguishable from the present case.
Distinguished by People v. Rodriguez, 794 P.2d 965 (1990)
Enmund therefore is inapplicable.
Distinguished by Bankhead v. State, 585 So. 2d 97 (1990)
Factually, Enmund is distinguishable from the present case.
The opinion
Justice Brennan,
concurring.
I join the Court’s opinion. However, I adhere to my view that the death penalty is in all circumstances cruel and unusual punishment prohibited by the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. See Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U. S. 153, 227 (1976) (dissenting opinion).