<P> In Coker v. Georgia, 433 U.S. 584 (1977), the Court declared that the death penalty was unconstitutionally excessive for rape of a woman and, by implication, for any crime where a death does not occur . The majority in Coker stated that "death is indeed a disproportionate penalty for the crime of raping an adult woman ." The dissent countered that the majority "takes too little account of the profound suffering the crime imposes upon the victims and their loved ones ." The dissent also characterized the majority as "myopic" for only considering legal history of "the past five years". </P> <P> In Kennedy v. Louisiana, 554 U.S. 407 (2008), the Court extended the reasoning of Coker by ruling that the death penalty was excessive for child rape "where the victim's life was not taken ." The Supreme Court failed to note a federal law, which applies to military court - martial proceedings, providing for the death penalty in cases of child rape . On October 1, 2008, the Court declined to reconsider its opinion in this case, but did amend the majority and dissenting opinions in order to acknowledge that federal law . Justice Scalia (joined by Chief Justice Roberts) wrote in dissent that "the proposed Eighth Amendment would have been laughed to scorn if it had read' no criminal penalty shall be imposed which the Supreme Court deems unacceptable ."' </P> <P> The first significant general challenge to capital punishment that reached the Supreme Court was the case of Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238 (1972). In a 5--4 decision, the Supreme Court overturned the death sentences of Furman for murder, as well as two other defendants for rape . Of the five justices voting to overturn the death penalty, two found capital punishment to be unconstitutionally cruel and unusual, while three found that the statutes at issue were implemented in a random and capricious fashion, discriminating against blacks and the poor . Furman v. Georgia did not hold--even though it is sometimes claimed that it did--that capital punishment is per se unconstitutional . </P> <P> States with capital punishment rewrote their laws to address the Supreme Court's decision, and the Court then revisited the issue in a murder case: Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153 (1976). In Gregg, the Court found, in a 7--2 ruling, that Georgia's new death penalty laws passed Eighth Amendment scrutiny: the statutes provided a bifurcated trial in which guilt and sentence were determined separately; and, the statutes provided for "specific jury findings" followed by state supreme court review comparing each death sentence "with the sentences imposed on similarly situated defendants to ensure that the sentence of death in a particular case is not disproportionate ." Because of the Gregg decision, executions resumed in 1977 . </P>

Which has been found by the supreme court to be cruel and unusual punishment