Georgia gave America its modern death penalty. Fifty years is long enough.
Vanessa Griddine-Jones · 2 October 2026
The Peach State’s system is capable of executing the innocent alongside the guilty, with no recourse once a life has been taken.
Fifty years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Gregg v. Georgia, making Georgia’s rewritten statute the constitutional framework for the modern American death penalty.
Gregg was the middle act in a trilogy of Georgia cases that shaped that system. Four years earlier, Furman v. Georgia halted executions nationwide.
Georgia responded with guided sentencing, separate guilt and penalty phases, and automatic review. Gregg upheld that framework, and executions resumed. In 1987, McCleskey v. Kemp allowed a Georgia death sentence — and known racial disparities in capital sentencing — to stand.
Together, they force a question Georgia can no longer avoid: When will the state end a practice that can take an innocent life and offers no remedy when it gets it wrong?
Originally published by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on 2 October 2026