The People of the State of California v. Robert Page Anderson, 493 P.2d 880, 6 Cal. 3d 628 (Cal. 1972), was a landmark case in the state of California that outlawed capital punishment for nine months until the enactment of a constitutional amendment reinstating it, Proposition 17. Background The case was an automatic appeal to the court under section 1239b of the California Penal Code, which provides that, following a death sentence, the case is automatically appealed to the State Supreme Court. Robert Page Anderson was convicted of first-degree murder, attempted murder of three men, and first-degree robbery. The Supreme Court affirmed the judgment of the lower court in People v. Anderson 64 Cal.2d 633 [51 Cal.Rptr. 238, 414 P.2d 366] (1966), but it reversed its decision with respect to the sentence of the death penalty In re Anderson, 69 Cal.2d 613 (1968) following the landmark case Witherspoon v. Illinois (1968), which decided that it was illegal to remove a juror who simply disagreed with the death penalty unless the juror adamantly refused to follow the law under any circumstances. The case was retried on the issue of the defendant's penalty, and the jury again returned a verdict of death. Decision In the original case (1966), the court did not raise the issue as to whether the death penalty was unconstitutional. In the second hearing, which also took place in 1968, the court did raise the issue but decided that the death penalty was neither cruel nor unusual. However, in view of Witherspoon, the court found that the defendant's death sentence was unconstitutionally decided. In this third hearing, the court changed its mind and decided the death penalty was cruel or unusual. The court ruled that the use of capital punishment was considered impermissibly cruel or unusual as it degraded and dehumanized the parties involved. It held that the penalty is "unnecessary to any legitimate goal of the state and [is] incompatible with the dignity of man and the judicial process". Furthermore, the court also cited the view of capital punishment in American society as one of the most important reasons for its acceptability, contending that a growing population and a decreasing number of executions was persuasive evidence that such a punishment was no longer condoned by the general public. The case also turned on a difference in wording between the U.S. Constitution's 8th Amendment argument against cruel and unusual