Pivotal moments in capital punishment

A timeline of news events and court rulings affecting Georgians' perception of the death penalty

1972: Furman v. Georgia
U.S. Supreme Court halts executions nationwide.
Justice Potter Stewart's opinion in Furman v. Georgia, 1972: "These death sentences are cruel and unusual in the same way that being struck by lightning is cruel and unusual. For, of all the people convicted of rapes and murders in 1967 and 1968, many just as reprehensible as these, the petitioners are among a capriciously selected random handful upon whom the sentence of death has in fact been imposed."

1976: Gregg v. Georgia
Supreme Court reinstates death penalty.
Justice Stewart: "The new Georgia sentencing procedures, by contrast, focus the jury's attention on the particularized nature of the crime and the particularized characteristics of the individual defendant. ... No longer can a jury wantonly and freakishly impose the death sentence; it is always circumscribed by the legislative guidelines."

1983: First execution under Georgia's new law.

1987: U.S. Supreme Court rules a larger pattern of racial discrimination is not enough to overturn a death sentence.

1988: Execution of mentally retarded defendants in Georgia banned.

1992: Innocence Project founded to focus on evidence that can prove convicted killers are innocent.

1993: Georgia adopts life without parole.

2000: Lethal injection replaces electric chair as Georgia method of execution.

2001: Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh is executed.

2005: U.S. Supreme Court rules defendants 17 and younger cannot be executed. Two Georgians on Death Row are affected.

2006: American Bar Association calls for a moratorium on the death penalty in Georgia to examine fairness and accuracy issues.