Cruel and Unusual Punishment: Tison V. Arizona

270 Words2 Pages
Tison v. Arizona, 481 U.S. 137 (1987), is a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court qualified the rule it set forth in Enmund v. Florida. Just as in Enmund, the Tison Court applied the proportionality principle to conclude that the death penalty was an appropriate punishment for a felony murderer who was a major participant in the underlying felony and exhibited a reckless indifference to human life. This case stems from an infamous prison break during the summer of 1978. Gary Tison was serving a life sentence at the Arizona State Prison in Florence for killing a prison guard. His three sons plotted to break him and his cellmate, Randy Greenawalt, out of prison. On July 30, 1978, the sons entered the prison for a visit, taking advantage of a policy that allowed an informal picnic setting for weekend family visits, carrying an ice chest packed with revolvers and sawed-off shotguns.[1] One of them aimed a sawed-off shotgun at a lobby guard. Greenawalt helped in the escape by cutting off telephones and alarm systems.[2] They escaped in Donald Tison's 1969 Lincoln Continental, but the next day, one of the Lincoln's tires blew out on a stretch of road not far from the California border, near Quartzsite. Marine Sgt. John Lyons, 24, of Yuma, traveling with his wife, son, and niece, on his way to visit family in Nebraska, stopped to help. Five days later, his body was found along with those of his wife, Donnelda, 23, his 22-month-old son Christopher, and his fifteen-year-old niece, Theresa

More about Cruel and Unusual Punishment: Tison V. Arizona

Open Document