ides do not result in death sentences (Godfrey v. Georgia, 1980). The death penalty provision in the federal drug law, mentioned above, has been criticized for this reason; opponents point out that only seven capital punishment cases have been brought in the past three years under the provision, despite the fact that more than 1300 homicides are linked to drug crimes every year (Frost, 1993). The problem with this challenge is that there is no accepted standard for measuring excessiveness in a particular case and no recent Supreme Court or federal Court of Appeals case has invalidated a death sentence based on such a challenge (Baldous, Woodworth, & Pulaski, 1990, p.307).
The second possible ground for challenge is that there is a lack of comparative-proportionality review in the state's supreme court. Comparative-proportionality is the principle discussed above in the first ground for challenge, where the death sentence must be consistent with the usual pattern of sentencing in similar cases. This second ground differs from the first in that it
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