MR. JUSTICE STEWART announced the judgment of the Court and delivered an opinion, in which MR. JUSTICE BLACKMUN, MR. JUSTICE POWELL, and MR. JUSTICE STEVENS joined.Under Georgia law, a person convicted of murder [Footnote 1] may be sentenced to death if it is found beyond a reasonable doubt that the offense "was outrageously or wantonly vile, horrible or inhuman in that it involved torture, depravity of mind, or an aggravated battery to the victim."  Ga.Code § 27-2534.1(b) (7) (1978).  In Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U. S. 153, the Court held that this statutory aggravating circumstance (§ (b)(7)) is not unconstitutional on its face.  Responding to the argument that the language of the provision is "so broad that capital Page 446 U. S. 423 punishment could be imposed in any murder case," the joint opinion said:"It is, of course, arguable that any murder involves depravity of mind or an aggravated battery.  But this language need not be construed in this way, and there is no reason to assume that the Supreme Court of Georgia will adopt such an open-ended construction."428 U.S. at  428 U. S. 201 (opinion of STEWART, POWELL, and STEVENS, JJ.) .  Nearly four years have passed since the Gregg decision, and, during that time, many death sentences based in whole or in part on § (b)(7) have been affirmed by the Supreme Court of Georgia.  The issue now before us is whether, in affirming the imposition of the sentences of death in the present case, the Georgia Supreme Court has adopted such a broad and vague construction of the § (b)(7) aggravating circumstance as to violate the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. [Footnote 2] Page 446 U. S. 424IOn a day in early September in 1977, the petitioner and his wife of 28 years had a heated argument in their home.  During the course of this altercation, the petitioner, who had consumed several cans of beer, threatened his wife with a knife and damaged some of her clothing.  At this point, the petitioner's wife declared that she was going to leave him, and departed to stay with relatives. [Footnote 3]  That afternoon, she went to a Justice of the Peace and secured a warrant charging the petitioner with aggravated assault.  A few days later, while still living away from home, she filed suit for divorce.  Summons was served on the petitioner, and a court hearing was set on a date some two weeks later.  Before the date of the hearing, the petitioner on several occasions asked his wife to return to their home.  Each time his efforts were rebuffed.  Page 446 U. S. 425 At some point during this period, his wife moved in with her mother.  The petitioner believed that his mother-in-law was actively instigating his wife's determination not to consider a possible reconciliation.In the early evening of September 20, according to the petitioner, his wife telephoned him at home.  Once again they argued.  She asserted that reconciliation was impossible, and allegedly demanded all the proceeds from the planned sale of their house.  The conversation was terminated after she said that she would call back later.  This she did in an hour or so.  The ensuing conversation was, according to the petitioner's account, even more heated than the first.  His wife reiterated her stand that reconciliation was out of the question, said that she still wanted all the proceeds from the sale of their house, and mentioned that her mother was supporting her position.  Stating that she saw no further use in talking or arguing, she hung up.At this juncture, the petitioner got out his shotgun and walked with it down the hill from his home to the trailer where his mother-in-law lived.  Peering through a window, he observed his wife, his mother-in-law, and his 11-year-old daughter playing a card game.  He pointed the shotgun at his wife through the window and pulled the trigger.  The charge from the gun struck his wife in the forehead and killed her instantly.  He proceeded into the trailer, striking and injuring his fleeing daughter with the barrel of the gun.  He then fired the gun at his mother-in-law, striking her in the head and killing her instantly.The petitioner then called the local sheriff's office, identified himself, said where he was, explained that he had just killed his wife and mother-in-law, and asked that the sheriff come and pick him up.  Upon arriving at the trailer, the law enforcement officers found the petitioner seated on a chair in open view near the driveway.  He told one of the officers that "they're dead, I killed them," and directed the officer to the place where he had put the murder weapon.  Later, the Page 446 U. S. 426 petitioner told a police officer:  "I've done a hideous crime, . . . but I have been thinking about it for eight years . . .  I'd do it again."The petitioner was subsequently indicted on two counts of murder and one count of aggravated assault.  He pleaded not guilty, and relied primarily on a defense of temporary insanity at his trial.  The jury returned verdicts of guilty on all three counts.The sentencing phase of the trial was held before the same jury.  No further evidence was tendered, but counsel for each side made arguments to the jury.  Three times during the course of his argument, the prosecutor stated that the case involved no allegation of "torture" or of an "aggravated battery."  When counsel had completed their arguments, the trial judge instructed the jury orally and in writing on the standards that must guide them in imposing sentence.  Both orally and in writing, the judge quoted to the jury the statutory language of the § (b)(7) aggravating circumstance in its entirety.The jury imposed sentences of death on both of the murder convictions.  As to each, the jury specified that the aggravating circumstance they had found beyond a reasonable doubt was "that the offense of murder was outrageously or wantonly vile, horrible and inhuman."In accord with Georgia law in capital cases, the trial judge prepared a report in the form of answers to a questionnaire for use on appellate review.  One question on the form asked whether or not the victim had been "physically harmed or tortured."  The trial judge's response was "No, as to both victims, excluding the actual murdering of the two victims." [Footnote 4]The Georgia Supreme Court affirmed the judgments of the trial court in all respects.  243 Ga. 302, 253 S.E.2d 710 Page 446 U. S. 427 (1979).  With regard to the imposition of the death sentence for each of the two murder convictions, the court rejected the petitioner's contention that § (b)(7) is unconstitutionally vague.  The court noted that Georgia's death penalty legislation had been upheld inGregg v. Georgia, 428 U. S. 153, and cited its prior decisions upholding § (b)(7) in the face of similar vagueness challenges.  243 Ga. at 308-309, 253 S.E.2d  at 717.  As to the petitioner's argument that the jury's phraseology was, as a matter of law, an inadequate statement of § (b)(7), the court responded by simply observing that the language "was not objectionable."  243 Ga. at 310, 253 S.E.2d  at 718.  The court found no evidence that the sentence had been "imposed under the influence of passion, prejudice, or any other arbitrary factor," held that the sentence was neither excessive nor disproportionate to the penalty imposed in similar cases, and stated that the evidence supported the jury's finding of the § (b)(7) statutory aggravating circumstance.  243 Ga. at 309-311, 253 S.E.2d  at 717-718.  Two justices dissented.IIIn Furman v. Georgia, 408 U. S. 238, the Court held that the penalty of death may not be imposed under sentencing procedures that create a substantial risk that the punishment will be inflicted in an arbitrary and capricious manner.  Gregg v. Georgia, supra, reaffirmed this holding:"[W]here discretion is afforded a sentencing body on a matter so grave as the determination of whether a human life should be taken or spared, that discretion must be suitably directed and limited so as to minimize the risk of wholly arbitrary and capricious action."428 U.S. at  428 U. S. 189 (opinion of STEWART, POWELL, and STEVENS, JJ.).  A capital sentencing scheme must, in short, provide a "meaningful basis for distinguishing the few cases in which [the penalty] is imposed from the many cases in which it is not.'"  Page 446 U. S. 428 Id. at  428 U. S. 188, quoting Furman v. Georgia, supra at  408 U. S. 313 (WHITE, J., concurring).This means that, if a State wishes to authorize capital punishment, it has a constitutional responsibility to tailor and apply its law in a manner that avoids the arbitrary and capricious infliction of the death penalty.  Part of a State's responsibility in this regard is to define the crimes for which death may be the sentence in a way that obviates "standardless [sentencing] discretion." Gregg v. Georgia, supra at  428 U. S. 196, n. 47.  See also Proffitt v. Florida, 428 U. S. 242; Jurek v. Texas, 428 U. S. 262.  It must channel the sentencer's discretion by "clear and objective standards" [Footnote 5] that provide "specific and detailed guidance," [Footnote 6] and that "make rationally reviewable the process for imposing a sentence of death." [Footnote 7]  As was made clear in Gregg, a death penalty"system could have standards so vague that they would fail adequately to channel the sentencing decision patterns of juries with the result that a pattern of arbitrary and capricious sentencing like that found unconstitutional in Furman could occur."428 U.S. at  428 U. S. 195, n. 46.In the case before us, the Georgia Supreme Court has affirmed a sentence of death based upon no more than a finding that the offense was "outrageously or wantonly vile, horrible and inhuman." [Footnote 8]  There is nothing in these few words, standing alone, that implies any inherent restraint on the arbitrary and capricious infliction of the death sentence.  A person of ordinary sensibility could fairly characterize almost Page 446 U. S. 429 every murder as "outrageously or wantonly vile, horrible and inhuman."  Such a view may, in fact, have been one to which the members of the jury in this case subscribed.  If so, their preconceptions were not dispelled by the trial judge's sentencing instructions.  These gave the jury no guidance concerning the meaning of any of § (b)(7)'s terms.  In fact, the jury's interpretation of § (b)(7) can only be the subject of sheer speculation.The standardless and unchanneled imposition of death sentences in the uncontrolled discretion of a basically uninstructed jury in this case was in no way cured by the affirmance of those sentences by the Georgia Supreme Court.  Under state law, that court may not affirm a judgment of death until it has independently assessed the evidence of record and determined that such evidence supports the trial judge's or jury's finding of an aggravating circumstance.  Ga.Code § 27-2537(c)(2) (1978) .In past cases, the State Supreme Court has apparently understood this obligation as carrying with it the responsibility to keep § (b)(7) within constitutional bounds.  Recognizing that "there is a possibility of abuse of [the § (b)(7)] statutory aggravating circumstance," the court has emphasized that it will not permit the language of that subsection simply to become a "catchall" for cases which do not fit within any other statutory aggravating circumstance.  Harris v. State, 237 Ga. 718, 732, 230 S.E.2d 1, 10 (1976).  Thus, in exercising its function of death sentence review, the court has said that it will restrict its "approval of the death penalty under this statutory aggravating circumstance to those cases that lie at the core."  Id. at 733, 230 S.E.2d  at 11.When Gregg was decided by this Court in 1976, the Georgia Supreme Court had affirmed two death sentences based wholly on (b)(7).  See McCorquodale v. State, 233 Ga. 369, 211 S.E.2d 577 (1974); House v. State, 232 Ga. 140, 205 S.E.2d 217 (1974).  The homicide in McCorquodale was "a horrifying Page 446 U. S. 430 torture-murder." [Footnote 9]  There, the victim had been beaten, burned, raped, and otherwise severely abused before her death by strangulation.  The homicide in House was of a similar ilk.  In that case, the convicted murderer had choked two 7-year-old boys to death after having forced each of them to submit to anal sodomy.Following our decision in Gregg, the Georgia Supreme Court for the first time articulated some of the conclusions it had reached with respect to § (b)(7):"This aggravating circumstance involves both the effect on the victim, viz., torture, or an aggravated battery; and the offender, viz., depravity of mind.  As to both parties, the test is that the acts (the offense) were outrageously or wantonly vile, horrible or inhuman.""*    *    *    *" "We believe that each of [the cases decided to date that has relied exclusively on § (b)(7) [Footnote 10]] establishes beyond any reasonable doubt a depravity of mind and either involved torture or an aggravated battery to the victim as illustrating the crimes were outrageously or wantonly vile, horrible or inhuman.  Each of the cases is at the core, and not the periphery. . . ."Harris v. State, supra, at 732-733, 230 S.E.2d  at 10-11.Subsequently, in Blake v. State, 239 Ga. 292, 236 S.E.2d 637 (1977), the court elaborated on its understanding of § (b)(7).  There, the contention was that a jury's finding of the aggravating circumstance could never be deemed unanimous without a polling of each member of the panel.  The court said:"We find no significant dissimilarity between outrageously vile, wantonly vile, horrible or inhuman.  Considering Page 446 U. S. 431 torture and aggravated battery on the one hand as substantially similar treatment of the victim, and depravity of mind, on the other hand, as relating to the defendant, we find no room for nonunanimous verdicts, for the reason that there is no prohibition upon measuring cause, on the one hand, by effect, on the other hand.  That is to say, the depravity of mind contemplated by the statute is that which results in torture or aggravated battery to the victim. . . ."239 Ga. at 299, 236 S.E.2d  at 643. [Footnote 11]The Harris and Blake opinions suggest that the Georgia Supreme Court had, by 1977, reached three separate but consistent conclusions respecting the § (b)(7) aggravating circumstance.  The first was that the evidence that the offense was "outrageously or wantonly vile, horrible or inhuman" had to demonstrate "torture, depravity of mind, or an aggravated battery to the victim." [Footnote 12]  The second was that the phrase, "depravity of mind," comprehended only the kind of mental state that led the murderer to torture or to commit an aggravated battery before killing his victim.  The third, derived from Blake alone, was that the word, "torture," must be construed in pari materia with "aggravated battery" so as to require evidence of serious physical abuse of the victim before death. [Footnote 13]  Indeed, the circumstances proved in a number Page 446 U. S. 432 of the § (b)(7) death sentence cases affirmed by the Georgia Supreme Court have met all three of these criteria. [Footnote 14]The Georgia courts did not, however, so limit § (b)(7) in the present case.  No claim was made, and nothing in the record before us suggests, that the petitioner committed an aggravated battery upon his wife or mother-in-law or, in fact, caused either of them to suffer any physical injury preceding their deaths.  Moreover, in the trial court, the prosecutor repeatedly told the jury -- and the trial judge wrote in his sentencing report -- that the murders did not involve "torture."  Nothing said on appeal by the Georgia Supreme Court indicates that it took a different view of the evidence.  The circumstances of this case, therefore, do not satisfy the criteria laid out by the Georgia Supreme Court itself in the Harris and Blake cases.  In holding that the evidence supported the jury's § (b)(7) finding, the State Supreme Court simply asserted that the verdict was "factually substantiated."Thus, the validity of the petitioner's death sentences turns on whether, in light of the facts and circumstances of the murders that he was convicted of committing, the Georgia Supreme Court can be said to have applied a constitutional construction of the phrase "outrageously or wantonly vile, horrible or inhuman in that [they] involved . . . depravity of mind. . . ." [Footnote 15]  We conclude that the answer must be no.  Page 446 U. S. 433 The petitioner's crimes cannot be said to have reflected a consciousness materially more "depraved" than that of any person guilty of murder.  His victims were killed instantaneously. [Footnote 16]  They were members of his family who were causing him extreme emotional trauma.  Shortly after the killings, he acknowledged his responsibility and the heinous nature of his crimes.  These factors certainly did not remove the criminality from the petitioner's acts.  But, as was said in Gardner v. Florida, 430 U. S. 349,  430 U. S. 358, it"is of vital importance to the defendant and to the community that any decision to impose the death sentence be, and appear to be, based on reason, rather than caprice or emotion."That cannot be said here.  There is no principled way to distinguish this case, in which the death penalty was imposed, from the many cases in which it was not.  Accordingly, the judgment of the Georgia Supreme Court, insofar as it leaves standing the petitioner's death sentences, is reversed, and the case is remanded to that court for further proceedings.It is so ordered
U.S. Supreme CourtGodfrey v. Georgia, 446 U.S. 420 (1980)Godfrey v. GeorgiaNo. 78-6899Argued February 20, 1980Decided May 19, 1980446 U.S. 420SyllabusUnder a provision of the Georgia Code, a person convicted of murder may be sentenced to death if it is found beyond a reasonable doubt that the offense"was outrageously or wantonly vile, horrible or inhuman in that it involved torture, depravity of mind, or an aggravated battery to the victim."(This statutory aggravating circumstance was held not to be unconstitutional on its face in Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U. S. 153.)  Upon a jury trial in a Georgia state court, petitioner was convicted of two counts of murder and one count of aggravated assault.  The evidence showed that, after his wife, who was living with her mother, had rebuffed his efforts for a reconciliation, petitioner went to his mother-in-law's trailer; fired a shotgun through the window, killing his wife instantly; proceeded into the trailer, striking and injuring his fleeing daughter with the barrel of the gun; and then shot and instantly killed his mother-in-law.  Petitioner then called the sheriff's office and, when officers arrived, acknowledged his responsibility, directed an officer to the murder weapon, and later told an officer, "I've done a hideous crime."  At the sentencing phase of the trial, the judge quoted to the jury the statutory provision in question, and the jury imposed death sentences on both murder convictions, specifying that the aggravating circumstance as to each conviction was that the offense "was outrageously or wantonly vile, horrible and inhuman."  The Georgia Supreme Court affirmed the trial court's judgments in all respects, rejecting petitioner's contention that the statutory provision was unconstitutionally vague and holding that the evidence supported the jury's finding of the statutory aggravating circumstance.Held:  The judgment is reversed insofar as it leaves standing the death sentences, and the case is remanded.  Pp.  446 U. S. 427-433;  446 U. S. 433-442.243 Ga. 302, 253 S.E.2d 710, reversed and remanded.MR. JUSTICE STEWART, joined by MR. JUSTICE BLACKMUN, MR. JUSTICE POWELL, and MR. JUSTICE STEVENS, concluded that, in affirming the death sentences in this case the Georgia Supreme Court adopted such a broad and vague construction of the statute in question as to violate the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments.  Pp.  446 U. S. 427-433.(a) If a State wishes to authorize capital punishment, it has a constitutional responsibility to tailor and apply its law in a manner that Page 446 U. S. 421 avoids the arbitrary and capricious infliction of the death penalty, and thus it must define the crimes for which death may be imposed in a way that obviates standardless sentencing discretion.  Cf. Furman v. Georgia, 408 U. S. 238; Gregg v. Georgia, supra.  Pp.  446 U. S. 427-48.(b) In earlier decisions interpreting the statutory provision, the Georgia Supreme Court concluded that (i) the evidence that the offense was "outrageously or wantonly vile, horrible or inhuman" must demonstrate "torture, depravity of mind, or an aggravated battery to the victim," (ii) the phrase "depravity of mind" comprehended only the kind of mental state that led the murderer to torture or to commit an aggravated battery before killing his victim, and (iii) the word "torture" must be construed in pari materia with "aggravated battery," so as to require evidence of serious physical abuse of the victim before death.  Pp.  446 U. S. 429-432.(c) However, the Georgia courts did not so limit the statute in the present case.  Petitioner did not torture or commit an aggravated battery upon his victims, or cause either of them to suffer any physical injury preceding their deaths.  Nor can the death sentences be upheld on the ground that the murders were "outrageously or wantonly vile, horrible or inhuman in that [they] involved . . . depravity of mind."  Petitioner's crimes cannot be said to have reflected a consciousness materially more "depraved" than that of any person guilty of murder.  Pp.  446 U. S. 432-433.MR. JUSTICE MARSHALL, joined by MR. JUSTICE BRENNAN, concurring in the judgment, expressed his continuing belief that the death penalty is in all circumstances cruel and unusual punishment forbidden by the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments, and also agreed with the plurality that the Georgia Supreme Court's construction of the statutory provision at issue here was unconstitutionally vague under Gregg v. Georgia, supra.  He further concluded that, even under the prevailing view that the death penalty may, in some circumstances, constitutionally be imposed, it is not enough for a reviewing court to apply a narrowing construction to otherwise ambiguous statutory language, it being necessary that the jury be instructed on the proper, narrow construction of the statute, and that developments since Gregg and its progeny strongly suggest that appellate courts are incapable of guaranteeing the kind of objectivity and evenhandedness that the Court contemplated in Gregg.  Pp.  446 U. S. 433-442.STEWART, J., announced the judgment of the Court and delivered an opinion, in which BLACKMUN, POWELL, and STEVENS, JJ., joined.  MARSHALL, J., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment, in which Page 446 U. S. 422 BRENNAN, J., joined, post, p.  446 U. S. 433.  BURGER, C.J., filed a dissenting opinion, post, p.  446 U. S. 442.  WHITE, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which REHNQUIST, J., joined, post, p.  446 U. S. 444.