The Courts decisions in both cases reflected the controversy and mixed feelings among the society at that time. In each case the decision was split: 5 to 4 in Furman and 7 to 2 in Gregg. Each event produced several concurring opinions, in which even those justices who agreed on the ultimate decision insisted on explaining their different and sometimes conflicting reasons for arriving at the same result.
             Most of the justices on the majority in Furman v. Georgia argued that the death penalty was unconstitutional because of the discriminatory way in which it was then administered. Justices Thurgood Marshall and William Brennan, however, argued that the death penalty would be unconstitutional no matter how it was administered. Therefore, in 1976, after thirty-five states and the federal government had reinstated capital punishment, the Supreme Court ruled that, in view of new statutes designed to reduce the arbitrary imposition of the death penalty, it was no longer cruel and unusual. Since 1976, more than five hundred prisoners have been executed in the
             ...