A 1983 case held that one way to determine whether a crime meets the “rarest of the rare” requirement is whether the community’s “collective conscience” has been “so shocked” that it expects those wielding judicial power to inflict the death penalty, regardless of their personal opinions. This leaves much room for the arbitrary and disproportionate application of capital punishment.
1983年的一个案例表明衡量犯罪行为是否符合“罕见中的罕见”的标准是看它能否“震撼”社会的“集体良知”，乃至普通民众期待那些司法权的执掌者无论个人同意与否均判处死刑。由此可能导致武断和不成比例的适用死刑。