Woodson v. North Carolina

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Woodson v. North Carolina (428 U.S. 280 (1976)) is a decision issued by the United States Supreme Court in 1976 concerning the death penalty and mandatory sentencing.

North Carolina passed a law that made the death penalty the mandatory sentence for first degree murder. James Woodson was convicted of first degree murder and was therefore automatically sentenced to death. Woodson challenged the law on the grounds that it violated his Eighth and Fourteenth Amendment rights.

In a 5-4 ruling, the US Supreme Court found that the North Carolina law was unconstitutional for three reasons. One, the law "departed from contemporary standards. Two, the law did not allow juries sufficient discretion and gave juries "no standards to guide the jury in determining which murderers shall live and which shall die." Lastly, the court also found that the "respect for human dignity" underlying the Fourteenth Amendment "requires consideration of aspects of the character of the individual offender and the circumstances of the particular offense".

External links

• Woodson v. North Carolina at Cornell Law

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