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In that case, the five-member majority held that the death oenalty was being used in an "arbitrary" manner. Because death is an irrevocable form of punishment, the Court said, arbitrariness in capitol punishment is a violation of the Eight Amendment prohibitions against "cruel and unusual" punishment.

Although two of the Justices in the majority - Brennan and Marshall - found death as a punishment constitutionally unaccpetable, the other three - Douglas, Stewart and White only objected to existing statues "as applied".

They death penalty is right, they said, but wrong in its application.

In reaction to Furman, state legislatures redrew their death penalty laws, making death mandatory for certain offences, and adding "guided discretion" statutes, designed to limit or control the exercise of discretion" by imposing explicit standards to be followed in the sentencing process.

The post-Furman statutes eventually produced Gregg vs Georgia in 1976, rejecting death penalty laws in Louisiana and North Carolina and upholding "guided discretion" as formulated by legislatures in Florida, Texas, and Georgia.

In Gregg, the court found that the new statutes which it upheld provided safeguards which should correct for the arbitrary and discriminatory application of the death penalty objected to in Furman.

"Should correct" is the operative phrase here. In fact, the supreme sanction's imposition remains as arbitrary today as it was before Gregg and Furman, and no less morally reprehensible than ever.

The moral, legal, statistical, and religious arguments against the death penalty remains as forceful today as they have always been.