People v. Bacigalupo

Opinion

KENNARD, J.

The Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which prohibits the infliction of “cruel and unusual punishments,” imposes various restrictions on the use of the death penalty as a punishment for crime. One such restriction is that any legislative scheme defining criminal conduct for which death is the prescribed penalty must include some narrowing principle that channels jury discretion and provides a principled way to distinguish those cases in which the death penalty is imposed from the many cases in which it is not. A death-eligibility criterion that fails to…