Enmund v. Florida

Enmund v. Florida
Argued March 23, 1982
Decided July 2, 1982
Full case nameEarl Enmund v. State of Florida
Citations458 U.S. 782 (more)
102 S. Ct. 3368; 73 L. Ed. 2d 1140
Case history
PriorConviction and sentence upheld by the Supreme Court of Florida, 399 So. 2d 1362 (Fla. 1981); cert. granted, 454 U.S. 939 (1981).
Holding
The Eighth Amendment's prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment does not allow the death penalty for a person who is involved in a felony in the course of which a murder is committed but does not kill, attempt to kill, or intend for a killing to take place.
Court membership
Chief Justice
Warren E. Burger
Associate Justices
William J. Brennan Jr. · Byron White
Thurgood Marshall · Harry Blackmun
Lewis F. Powell Jr. · William Rehnquist
John P. Stevens · Sandra Day O'Connor
Case opinions
MajorityWhite, joined by Brennan, Marshall, Blackmun, Stevens
ConcurrenceBrennan
DissentO'Connor, joined by Burger, Powell, Rehnquist
Laws applied
U.S. Const. amend. VIII

Enmund v. Florida, 458 U.S. 782 (1982), is a United States Supreme Court case. It was a 5–4 decision in which the United States Supreme Court applied its capital proportionality principle, to set aside the death penalty for the driver of a getaway car, in a robbery-murder of an elderly Floridian couple. The court ruled that the imposition of the death penalty under the felony murder rule when the defendant did not intentionally kill the victim constituted cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment of the United States constitution.