Gregg v. Georgia

Crime, Investigation, and Trial

Troy Gregg and a companion, Floyd Allen, were picked up while hitchhiking on November 21, 1973, by Fred Simmons and Bob Moore. Outside of Atlanta, Georgia, the four travelers took a rest stop by the side of the road, where the bodies of Simmons and Moore were found the next morning. They had been killed by a .25 caliber pistol. Based on a report from a third hitchhiker who gave a description of the car the four had driven in, police picked up Gregg and Allen on November 24 in North Carolina. Gregg and Allen were in the car described by the third hitchhiker, and Gregg had a .25 caliber pistol, later shown to be the one used in the shooting of Simmons and Moore.

Gregg admitted in a signed confession to shooting and robbing both Simmons and Moore. He initially claimed he had shot in self-defense, whereas Allen stated that the shootings happened during the course of the robberies and were deliberate. When detectives brought Gregg back to the crime scene, he confirmed Allen's version of the story.

At trial, Gregg claimed self-defense, but his contrary statements to detectives and a letter he wrote to Allen were put into evidence against him. Gregg was convicted by the jury of two counts each of murder and of armed robbery. In the separate sentencing phase of the trial, he was sentenced to death for each of the murders, based on the presence of two of ten aggravating factors required by the new Georgia capital murder statute; only one was required. On appeal, the Georgia Supreme Court upheld the sentence, and Gregg then appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

U.S. Supreme Court Ruling

The issues before the Supreme Court were whether the death penalty was a constitutional form of punishment for the crime of murder and, if so, whether the Georgia capital sentencing statute provided sufficient procedural safeguards against arbitrary and capricious imposition of the death sentence. In Gregg, the Court upheld the majority finding in Furman that the punishment of death for the crime of murder did not, in and of itself, violate the Eighth or the Fourteenth Amendment. Next, the Court considered whether the procedural safeguards established by the Georgia State Legislature in response to the Furman decision were sufficient to minimize the risk of arbitrary and capricious imposition of the death sentence. These safeguards included a bifurcated procedure: First, a trial was held to determine guilt or innocence. The guilty verdict was then followed by a separate hearing to determine whether a sentence of death was appropriate. In this penalty phase of the trial, the jury was to consider aggravating and mitigating factors. The jury in Gregg in fact had found two of the aggravating factors defined by the new Georgia capital sentencing statute to be present: The murders were committed firstiy while the defendant was engaged in another capital offense (armed robbery), and secondly in order to obtain the victims' property. The Supreme Court held that this statutory scheme and these findings were adequate justification for the imposition of the death penalty.

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