Louisiana's new death penalty statute is unconstitutional because it calls for a mandatory death sentence for a large range of crimes. Decided July 2, 1976 (argued 1976). Opinion of the Court: John Paul Stevens → go there Dissenting: Brennan, Marshall. Applied: the Eighth Amendment → go there Applied: the Fourteenth Amendment → go there Topic: Capital punishment. Gregg v. Georgia, Proffitt v. Florida, Jurek v. Texas, Woodson v. North Carolina, and Roberts v. Louisiana, 428 U.S. 153 (1976), is a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court. It reaffirmed the Court's acceptance of the use of the death penalty in the United States, upholding, in particular, the death sentence imposed on Troy Leon Gregg. The set of cases is referred to by a leading scholar as the July 2 Cases, and elsewhere referred to by the lead case Gregg. The court set forth the two main features that capital sentencing procedures must employ in order to comply with the Eighth Amendment ban on "cruel and unusual punishments". The decision essentially ended the de facto moratorium on the death penalty imposed by the Court in its 1972 decision in Furman v. Georgia (1972). Justice Brennan's dissent said that "The calculated killing of a human being by the State involves, by its very nature, a denial of the executed person's humanity [...] An executed person has indeed 'lost the right to have rights.'" Wiki link