In the case of Lowenfield v. Phelps, 1987, the US Supreme Court upheld a death sentence despite concerns about duplicative charges. Leslie Lowenfield was convicted in Louisiana for five counts of first-degree murder and sentenced to death. The defense argued that his conviction violated the Double Jeopardy Clause because he was charged with both killing more than one person and creating risk of harm or danger to others during his crime - essentially being punished twice for the same offense. However, the court ruled 5-4 that these were separate aspects of his crimes and did not constitute double jeopardy. Furthermore, it held that even if there had been an error in allowing both aggravating circumstances to be considered at sentencing phase, it would have been harmless beyond a reasonable doubt as any rational jury would have found at least one valid aggravating circumstance warranting a penalty of death.

In the dissenting opinion for Lowenfield v. Phelps, Justice Brennan disagreed with the majority's interpretation of Louisiana law and its application to this case. He argued that under Louisiana law, a defendant could not be sentenced to death unless he was found guilty of at least one statutory aggravating circumstance beyond a reasonable doubt by the jury. In this case, however, the only aggravating circumstance presented was identical to an element of the underlying crime itself - multiple murders committed during a single criminal episode. This redundancy failed to narrow down those eligible for capital punishment as required by previous Supreme Court rulings on Eighth Amendment protections against cruel and unusual punishment. Furthermore, Justice Brennan criticized how instructions given to jurors did not clarify that they needed unanimous agreement on specific reasons for imposing death penalty rather than just general unanimity in decision-making process which might have led them into believing they had no choice but impose it once guilt was established.