Lockett v. Ohio
The Supreme Court struck down Sandra Lockett's death sentence, ruling that Ohio's capital-sentencing law unconstitutionally blocked judges from considering important facts about a defendant's background and role in the crime before choosing death.
The decision established that judges and juries deciding whether to impose a death sentence must be allowed to weigh nearly any mitigating fact a defendant offers, reshaping death penalty procedures nationwide.
How it got here: An Ohio trial court sentenced Lockett to death; the Ohio Supreme Court affirmed; she asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review the constitutionality of her conviction and sentence.
The Case in Depth
What happened
Sandra Lockett, a 21-year-old woman, helped plan a pawnshop robbery in Akron, Ohio, and waited in the getaway car while others entered the shop. A companion's gun fired during the robbery, killing the pawnbroker. Lockett did not enter the shop, fire the gun, or plan for anyone to die. She was convicted of aggravated murder as an aider and abettor and sentenced to death under Ohio's capital statute.
The question before the Court
Could Ohio sentence a young woman to death for her role in a robbery-murder without letting the judge weigh her age, character, or minor role as reasons for mercy?
The Court's answer
No — the Court ruled that Ohio's death penalty law was unconstitutional as applied because it let the sentencing judge consider only three narrow mitigating circumstances, cutting off consideration of other relevant facts like the defendant's age, character, prior record, and limited role in the crime.
The Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments require that, in capital cases, the person deciding the sentence must be allowed to weigh any aspect of the defendant's background or the circumstances of the crime that she offers as a reason for a lesser sentence. Because Ohio's law blocked the judge from considering things like Lockett's minor role as a getaway driver and her lack of intent to kill, her death sentence was reversed and the case sent back for new sentencing proceedings under a broader standard.
Curious how the Court got there? See the step-by-step legal reasoning →
Why it matters
States with death penalty laws that narrowly limited which personal factors could reduce a sentence had to rewrite their sentencing procedures to let judges and juries consider broader mitigating evidence — age, mental state, role in the crime, background — before choosing death, giving capital defendants far more room to argue for their lives.
What changes now
Lockett's conviction stands, but her death sentence is reversed, and the case returns to Ohio courts for new sentencing proceedings that allow full consideration of mitigating evidence. More broadly, states with similarly narrow capital-sentencing statutes had to revise them to comply with this ruling, which became a foundational rule governing how American capital sentencing procedures must operate going forward.
What this does not decide
The Court expressly did not decide whether the death penalty is disproportionate for someone who did not personally kill or intend to kill, whether a jury (rather than a judge) must impose the sentence, or whether defendants can be made to bear the burden of proving mitigating circumstances exist.
Concurrences and dissents
Concurrence in part — Justice Blackmun
Justice Blackmun joined only Parts I and II (upholding the conviction) and would reverse the death sentence for narrower reasons than the plurality. He argued Ohio's law improperly let a mere aider and abettor be sentenced to death without letting the sentencer weigh her limited participation and mental state, and separately that Ohio's scheme unconstitutionally burdened the right to a jury trial under United States v. Jackson.
Concurrence — Justice Marshall
Justice Marshall reiterated his long-standing view that the death penalty is always cruel and unusual punishment. He argued that sentencing this 21-year-old woman to death for a killing she neither committed nor intended, under a theory of vicarious liability, exemplified the arbitrary and disproportionate outcomes he believes the Eighth Amendment forbids.
Dissent in part — Justice White
“it violates the Eighth Amendment to impose the penalty of death without a finding that the defendant possessed a purpose to cause the death of the victim.”White's narrower rationale for reversing the death sentence, based on lack of intent to kill.
Justice White agreed the death sentence must be reversed but for a different, narrower reason: he would hold that the Eighth Amendment forbids executing someone who was never found to have intended the victim's death. He dissented from the plurality's broader rule requiring sentencers to consider virtually any mitigating evidence, warning it would return capital sentencing to the unguided discretion condemned in Furman.
Dissent in part — Justice Rehnquist
Justice Rehnquist joined only Parts I and II and would have affirmed the death sentence entirely. He argued the plurality's new rule requiring consideration of virtually unlimited mitigating evidence was not a faithful extension of Furman or Woodson, and that it would not curb arbitrariness in capital sentencing but instead 'unleash' it by letting defendants introduce anything as a mitigating factor.
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- The Court traced its post-Furman death penalty cases, explaining that after Furman v. Georgia found unguided sentencing discretion unconstitutional, the Court in Woodson v. North Carolina and its companion cases required that capital sentencers be allowed to consider the character and record of the offender and the circumstances of the offense as an indispensable part of deciding whether to impose death.
- Building on that principle, the Court held that the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments require that, in nearly all capital cases, the sentencer not be prevented from considering any aspect of the defendant's character or record, or any circumstance of the offense, that the defendant offers as a reason for a sentence less than death.
- The Court then compared Ohio's statute to the statutes it had upheld in Gregg v. Georgia, Proffitt v. Florida, and Jurek v. Texas, noting that all three of those statutes allowed the sentencer to weigh a broad, essentially open-ended range of mitigating evidence.
- By contrast, Ohio's law permitted the sentencing judge to consider only three specific mitigating circumstances — victim inducement, duress, or the offender's psychosis or mental deficiency — and nothing else, even if a defendant's age, minor role, or lack of intent to kill might otherwise call for a lesser sentence.
- Because this narrow list of mitigating factors could exclude relevant information about the individual defendant, the Court concluded the statute created an unacceptable risk that death would be imposed despite factors that might call for mercy, violating the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments.
Doctrinal impact
Cases affected by this decision
Reaffirms Woodson v. North Carolina (428 U.S. 280)
The Court builds on Woodson's rule that capital sentencers must consider the offender's character and record.
Distinguishes Gregg v. Georgia (428 U.S. 153)
The Court found Georgia's statute allowed broad mitigating evidence, unlike Ohio's more restrictive law.
Reaffirms Furman v. Georgia (408 U.S. 238)
The Court treats Furman's concern with arbitrary death sentencing as the foundation for today's ruling.