Loving v. United States

The United States Supreme Court held in Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238 (1972), that the death penalty was unconstitutional unless safeguards were imposed to limit the discretion of trial courts and to prevent death sentences from being imposed arbitrarily. In 1984, in response to this holding, the President of the United States signed an executive order promulgating Rule for Courts-Martial (RCM) 1004. The rule allowed a court-martial to impose the death penalty only if: 1) the panel unanimously found the accused guilty of a capital offense, 2) at least one aggravating factor was present, and 3) any aggravating circumstances substantially outweighed any mitigating or extenuating circumstances. The rule also established 11 categories of aggravating factors that justified the imposition of the death penalty. A general court-martial convicted Army Private Dwight Loving (defendant) of murder and sentenced him to death based on the presence of three of the aggravating factors established by RCM 1004. The convening authority approved the conviction and the sentence. Loving appealed, arguing that the president’s promulgation of RCM 1004 violated the doctrine of separation of powers, rendering Loving’s death-penalty conviction unconstitutional. Both the United States Army Court of Criminal Review and the United States Court of Military Appeals rejected Loving’s argument and affirmed his conviction and his sentence. The United States Supreme Court granted certiorari.