<P> Utah was the first state to resume executions after capital punishment was reinstated in the United States in 1976, when Gary Gilmore was executed by a firing squad on January 17, 1977 . Following his conviction and death sentence Gilmore insisted he wanted to be executed, and for this reason some consider the national moratorium to have only ended in 1979 with electrocution of John Arthur Spenkelink, who resisted his execution . </P> <P> The July 2 Cases mark the beginning of the United States' modern legal conversation about the death penalty . Major subsequent developments include forbidding the death penalty for rape (Coker v. Georgia), restricting the death penalty in cases of felony murder (Enmund v. Florida), exempting the mentally handicapped (Atkins v. Virginia) and juvenile murderers (Roper v. Simmons) from the death penalty, removing virtually all limitations on the presentation of mitigating evidence (Lockett v. Ohio, Holmes v. South Carolina), requiring precision in the definition of aggravating factors (Godfrey v. Georgia, Walton v. Arizona), and requiring the jury to decide whether aggravating factors have been proved beyond a reasonable doubt (Ring v. Arizona). </P>

Who wrote the majority opinion in gregg v georgia