Maynard v. Cartwright

Maynard v. Howell
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued April 19, 1988 Decided June 6, 1988
Full case name	Maynard v. Cartwright
Citations	486 U.S. 356 (more) 108 S. Ct. 1853; 100 L. Ed. 2d 372; 1988 U.S. LEXIS 2486
Case history
Prior	Cartwright v. Maynard, 802 F.2d 1203 (10th Cir. 1986); on rehearing en banc, 822 F.2d 1477 (10th Cir. 1987); cert. granted, 484 U.S. 1003 (1988).
Holding
Oklahoma's statutory characterization of aggravating circumstances as "especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel" is unconstitutionally vague under the Eighth Amendment; the proper analysis focuses on whether the challenged aggravating circumstance adequately informs the jury as to what it must find in order to impose the death penalty, or whether it leaves the jury with unchanneled discretion to make an arbitrary and capricious decision.
Court membership
Chief Justice William Rehnquist Associate Justices William J. Brennan Jr. · Byron White Thurgood Marshall · Harry Blackmun John P. Stevens · Sandra Day O'Connor Antonin Scalia · Anthony Kennedy
Case opinions
Majority	White, joined by unanimous
Concurrence	Brennan, joined by Marshall
Laws applied
U.S. Const. amend. VIII

Maynard v. Cartwright, 486 U.S. 356 (1988), is a United States Supreme Court case in which a unanimous Court found that the "especially heinous, atrocious or cruel" standard for the application of the death penalty as defined by the Eighth Amendment was too vague. As such, Oklahoma's law was overturned based on Furman v. Georgia (1972).

Justice William J. Brennan Jr. announced in a concurrence, joined by Justice Thurgood Marshall, that he would adhere to his view that the death penalty is in all circumstances cruel and unusual punishment prohibited by the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments.

See also

• Capital punishment
• Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution
• Walton v. Arizona (1990)
• List of United States Supreme Court cases, volume 486
• List of United States Supreme Court cases
• Lists of United States Supreme Court cases by volume
• List of United States Supreme Court cases by the Rehnquist Court

External links

• Text of Maynard v. Cartwright, 486 U.S. 356 (1988) is available from: CourtListener Findlaw Google Scholar Justia Library of Congress Oyez (oral argument audio)