Thurgood Marshall: Opinion in Furman v. Georgia

Thurgood Marshall’s life spanned a momentous period in American history, from the entrenched segregation of the early twentieth century to the post-civil-rights movement after mid-century in which discrimination grievances have become incorporated into formal legal structures. It is noteworthy that it was Marshall, the grandchild of slaves, who played a crucial role in affording civil rights the protection of the law. As an NAACP attorney, he was a prime advocate of legal strategies that ushered in an integrated American society. As an associate Supreme Court justice, Marshall continued his passion for correcting some of the practices he viewed as systemically discriminatory. The case of Furman v. Georgia declared that capital punishment, as it was then practiced, amounted to an unconstitutional violation of the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishments. In his concurring opinion, Marshall made clear that while he did not condone the conduct of the...