The case of Coker v. Georgia, 433 U.S. 584, (1977), is a United States Supreme Court case which address a claim of cruel and unusual punishment, under the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution, as well as a proportionality claim (Cornell University, n.d.). The petitioner in this case, Ehrlich Anthony Coker, claimed that the state of Georgia had violated his Eighth Amendment rights, when he was given a death sentence for his rape of an adult female, and subsequently claims that the punishment was too severe for the crime he committed, thus the proportionality claim. Ehrlich Anthony Coker was an inmate in a Georgia state prison, serving three life sentences, for rape and murder, as well as two 20 year sentences, and one 8 …show more content…
The jury did not agree with the insanity defense, and subsequently found Coker to be guilty on all charges. The next phase of his trial was the sentencing phase, where the jury had to decide which punishment should be applied, to Coker, for these new offenses. During the penalty phase, the jury received instructions, from the court, that they could consider several aggravating factors while deliberating the penalty case. One of these instructions was that they could consider whether or not the rape had been committed by a person who had been previously convicted for a capital offense (Brody & Acker, 2010). In this case, Coker had been previously convicted of rape and murder. The jury was also instructed that they could consider the fact that the rape had been committed, during the commission of another capital crime, such as the armed robbery of Mr. Carver. These instructions were appropriate and correct, pursuant to the Georgia state law. The jury did consider these aggravating factors, and returned with a sentence of death for Coker. Coker was sentenced to die by electrocution by the …show more content…
The Court overturned the sentence, and remanded the case back to the state court. In reaching this decision, the Court held that public sentiment, as well as most state legislatures had moved away from using the death penalty for the rape of an adult female, and that only a few still found it acceptable for the rape of a child (Cornell University, n.d.). The Court further held that under Georgia law, an intentional murderer could not be sentenced to death, without aggravating factors, and as such, the crime of rape, in this case, did not occur with the taking of a life, and as such, it cannot be punished by the death penalty because the murderer could not be given the death penalty for the more serious crime. This means that based on the state law, if a person intentionally killed another person, absent of any aggravating circumstances, the killer could not be sentenced to death. That made the rape of an adult woman, without the taking of her life, less of an offense that the intentional murder, and therefore the death penalty was a disproportionate