William Henry Furman
William Henry Furman is an American convicted felon who was the central figure in Furman v. Georgia, the case in which the United States Supreme Court outlawed most uses of the death penalty in the United States.Background
Furman had a sixth-grade education and was judged "emotionally disturbed and mentally impaired."Furman was convicted of murdering, during a home invasion, William Micke in Savannah, Georgia on August 11, 1967, and subsequently sentenced to death on September 26, 1968, after a one-day trial.
The sentence was overturned by the Supreme Court on the basis of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. The decision struck down death penalty schemes in the whole country. Four years after the landmark decision, the Supreme Court reaffirmed the constitutionality of the death penalty when it approved the statutory changes made by three states in Gregg v. Georgia.
Furman was paroled in April 1984.
He pleaded guilty to a 2004 burglary charge in Bibb County Superior Court, and was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
In April 2016, Furman was paroled from prison.
