Capital punishment is reserved for murder and barred for non-homicide crimes.
Evidence
Coker v. Georgia (1977); The death penalty cannot be imposed for Kennedy v. Louisiana (2008) non-homicide crimes, such as the rape of an adult or a child. — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 2008
Categorization
- XREF: Proportionality doctrine under the Eighth Amendment, linking Coker and Kennedy across three decades. — connects to: A society can sentence people to death yet remain unwilling to actually execute them — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 2070; Capital punishment has historically been imposed for minor property crimes — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 1880; Feigned punishment could deter crime without real suffering — Jeremy Bentham, The Panopticon Writings, 28 (+15 more)
Broader Connections
- Capital punishment has historically been imposed for minor property crimes
#contradicts(1.00) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 1880 - The Court has categorically barred executing juveniles, the intellectually disabled, and non-murderers
#corroborates(1.00) — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 2031 - Support for capital punishment rests on retribution, not deterrence evidence
#complicates(0.95) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 1966 - A society can sentence people to death yet remain unwilling to actually execute them
#complicates(0.90) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 2070 - Feigned punishment could deter crime without real suffering
#complicates(0.90) — Jeremy Bentham, The Panopticon Writings, 28 - Secrecy of executions contradicts the deterrent rationale for capital punishment
#complicates(0.90) - Moral justifiers of execution reframe killing as murder sanctioned by scripture
#complicates(0.90) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 1846 - Lynching substituted for legal execution when courts could not impose it
#complicates(0.90) — Dorothy A. Brown, Getting to Reparations, 299 - Subtler punishment masked sovereign power rather than making it more humane
#complicates(0.90) - For some offenders, the death penalty is not a deterrent but a desired reward
#complicates(0.85) - Punishment shifted from sovereign vengeance to ensuring no crime goes unpunished
#complicates(0.80) - Law and morality are distinguished by the type of punishment attached
#complicates(0.80) — Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular, 1150 - Many homicides arise from impulsive arguments, which the death penalty cannot deter
#complicates(0.80) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 1956 - The modern state makes killing-without-penalty a routine potential status
#complicates(0.80) - Painless execution drugs are the logical terminus of non-corporal penality
#complicates(0.80) — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 46