In 1976, when the Court held that new "guided discretion statutes" did not violate the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments, the majority believed that the new statutes would eliminate the "humanistic concerns" about the death penalty which they found problematic in pre-Furman statutes. Evidence described in this study shows that the majority was wrong. Humanistic concerns, critical to the constitutionality of the death penalty, remain problematic under post-Furman statutes. This paper examines the humanistic concerns of the Supreme Court with special emphasis on the post-Furman experience and sketches a humanist justification for abolition of the death penalty. 67 references. (Publisher abstract)