Argued: N/A
Decided: January 24, 2004
For Case Analysis: N/A

Did the Sixth Circuit err in concluding that the "especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel" aggravating circumstance found by the jury at the sentencing phase of Bell's trial was unconstitutionally vague, and in finding that the Tennessee Supreme Court failed to cure any constitutional deficiencies on appeal?

Yes. The Court concluded that the federal appeals court had failed to accord to the state court the deference required by 28 U. S. C. § 2254(d).

From the per curiam opinion:

[E]ven assuming that the Court of Appeals was correct to conclude that the State's statutory aggravating circumstance was facially vague, the court erred in presuming that the State Supreme Court failed to cure this vagueness by applying a narrowing construction on direct appeal. The state court did apply such a narrowing construction, and that construction satisfied constitutional demands by ensuring that respondent was not sentenced to death in an arbitrary or capricious manner. … The state court's affirmance of respondent's sentence on this ground was therefore not "contrary to . . . clearly established Federal law," 28 U. S. C. §2254(d)(1), and the Court of Appeals was without power to issue a writ of habeas corpus.

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Argued: April 26, 2005
Decided: June 27, 2005
For Case Analysis: See ABA Preview 416

Did the Court of Appeals abuse its discretion when, without entering a formal order, it withheld its mandate for more than five months after the Supreme Court denied certiorari and a petition for rehearing?

Yes. Assuming that Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 41 authorizes a stay of a mandate following a denial of certiorari and that a court may stay the mandate without entering an order, the Sixth Circuit's decision to do so here was an abuse of discretion.

From the opinion by Justice Kennedy (joined by Chief Justice Rehnquist and Justices O'Connor, Scalia, and Thomas):

Prominent among our concerns is the length of time between this Court's denial of certiorari and the Court of Appeals' issuance of its amended opinion. We denied Thompson's petition for certiorari in December 2003 and his petition for rehearing one month later. From this last denial, however, the Court of Appeals delayed issuing its mandate for over five months, releasing its amended opinion in June. The consequence of delay for the State's criminal justice system was compounded by the Court of Appeals' failure to issue an order or otherwise give notice to the parties that the court was reconsidering its earlier opinion.

Dissenting: Justice Breyer (joined by Justices Stevens, Souter, and Ginsburg)

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Argued: April 19, 2005
Decided: June 13,2005
For Case Analysis: See ABA Preview 435

Is the capital defendant Stumpf entitled to habeas on the grounds that his guilty plea was not knowing, voluntary, and intelligent, and that the state, in a later trial of Stumpf's accomplice, pursued a theory of the case inconsistent with the theory it had advanced in Stumpf's case?

No. The Court ruled that the Sixth Circuit erred in finding that Stumpf had not been properly informed before pleading guilty as well as in holding that prosecutorial inconsistencies between the Stumpf and his accomplice's cases required voiding Stumpf's guilty plea, and it remanded for a determination of whether the inconsistencies affected Stumpf's sentence.

From the unanimous opinion by Justice O'Connor:

The Court of Appeals was … wrong to hold that prosecutorial inconsistencies between the Stumpf and Wesley cases required voiding Stumpf 's guilty plea. Stumpf 's assertions of inconsistency relate entirely to the prosecutor's arguments about which of the two men, Wesley or Stumpf, shot Mrs. Stout. [T]the precise identity of the triggerman was immaterial to Stumpf's conviction for aggravated murder. Moreover, Stumpf has never provided an explanation of how the prosecution's postplea use of inconsistent arguments could have affected the knowing, voluntary, and intelligent nature of his plea. The prosecutor's use of allegedly inconsistent theories may have a more direct effect on Stumpf 's sentence, however, for it is at least arguable that the sentencing panel's conclusion about Stumpf 's principal role in the offense was material to its sentencing determination.

Concurring: Justice Souter (joined by Justice Ginsburg)
Concurring: Justice Thomas (joined by Justice Scalia)

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Argued: November 10, 2004
Decided: March 22, 2005
For Case Analysis: See ABA Preview 107

Was the California Supreme Court's decision that the jury instructions given at trial did not preclude the defendant's capital jury from considering and giving effect to evidence of his post-crime religious conversion, an "unreasonable application of clearly established federal law" under the Anti-terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA)?

No. The California decision was not an "unreasonable application of clearly established federal law" and that the Ninth Circuit's decision overturning the state court was therefore contrary to the limits on federal habeas review imposed by AEDPA.

From the opinion by Justice Kennedy (joined by Justices O'Connor, Scalia, Thomas and Breyer):

AEDPA provides that, when a habeas petitioner's claim has been adjudicated on the merits in state-court proceedings, a federal court may not grant relief unless the state court's adjudication of the claim "resulted in a decision that was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States." A state-court decision is contrary to this Court's clearly established precedents if it applies a rule that contradicts the governing law set forth in our cases, or if it confronts a set of facts that is materially indistinguishable from a decision of this Court but reaches a different result. A state-court decision involves an unreasonable application of this Court's clearly established precedents if the state court applies this Court's precedents to the facts in an objectively unreasonable manner. These conditions for the grant of federal habeas relief have not been established.

Concurring: Justice Scalia (joined by Justice Thomas)
Concurring: Justice Breyer
Dissenting: Justice Souter (joined by Justices Stevens and Ginsburg)
Taking no part: Chief Justice Rehnquist

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Argued: March 1, 2005
Decided: May 23, 2005
For Case Analysis: See ABA Preview 286

Does the Constitution forbid the use of visible shackles during a capital trial's penalty phase?

Yes. The Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution prohibit the use of physical restraints visible to the jury during a capital trial and the penalty phase, unless the trial court determines in the exercise of its discretion that such use is justified by a state interest specific to the particular defendant on trial.

From the opinion by Justice Breyer (joined by Chief Justice Rehnquist, and Justices Stevens, O'Connor, Kennedy, Souter, and Ginsburg.)

The appearance of the offender during the penalty phase in shackles… almost inevitably implies to a jury, as a matter of common sense, that court authorities consider the offender a danger to the community—often a statutory aggravator and nearly always a relevant factor in jury decision making, even where the State does not specifically argue the point. It also almost inevitably affects adversely the jury's perception of the character of the defendant. And it thereby inevitably undermines the jury's ability to weigh accurately all relevant considerations—considerations that are often unquantifiable and elusive—when it determines whether a defendant deserves death. In these ways, the use of shackles can be a "thumb [on] death's side of the scale."

Dissenting: Justice Thomas (joined by Justice Scalia)

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Argued: November 2, 2004
Decided: December 13, 2004
For Case Analysis: See ABA Preview 102

Does counsel's failure to obtain the defendant's express consent to a strategy of conceding guilt in a capital trial automatically render counsel's performance deficient?

No. The Court determined that, given Nixon's constant resistance to answering inquiries put to him by counsel and court, his trial attorney was not additionally required to gain express consent before conceding Nixon's guilt.

From the opinion by Justice Ginsburg (joined by all other members except Chief Justice Rehnquist, who took no part in the decision of the case):

[I]n a capital case, counsel must consider in conjunction both the guilt and penalty phases in determining how best to proceed. When counsel informs the defendant of the strategy counsel believes to be in the defendant's best interest and the defendant is unresponsive, counsel's strategic choice is not impeded by any blanket rule demanding the defendant's explicit consent. Instead, if counsel's strategy, given the evidence bearing on the defendant's guilt, satisfies the Strickland standard, that is the end of the matter; no tenable claim of ineffective assistance would remain.

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Argued: N/A
Decided: January 24, 2005
For Case Analysis: N/A

Was the petitioner's federal constitutional claim—that the Mississippi courts violated his rights by refusing to require a jury instruction about a lesser included offense in his capital case—properly raised before the Mississippi Supreme Court?

No. The Court concluded that the petitioner did not raise this claim in the Supreme Court of Mississippi, and it therefore dismissed the writ of certiorari as improvidently granted.

From the per curiam opinion:

Petitioner's brief in the State Supreme Court did not properly present his claim as one arising under federal law. In the relevant argument, he did not cite the Constitution or even any cases directly construing it, much less any of this Court's cases. Instead, he argues that he presented his federal claim by citing Harveston v. State, 493 So. 2d 365 (Miss. 1986), which cited (among other cases) Fairchild v. State, 459 So. 2d 793 (Miss. 1984), which in turn cited Beck, but only by way of acknowledging that Mississippi's general rule requiring lesser-included-offense instructions "takes on constitutional proportions" in capital cases. 459 So. 2d, at 800. Assuming it constituted adequate briefing of the federal question under state-law standards, petitioner's daisy chain—which depends upon a case that was cited by one of the cases that was cited by one of the cases that petitioner cited—is too lengthy to meet this Court's standards for proper presentation of a federal claim.

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Argued: March 28, 2005
Dismissed: May 23, 2005
For Case Analysis: See ABA Preview 341

Is a federal court bound by the International Court of Justice's (ICJ) ruling that United States courts must reconsider petitioner Jose Medellin's claim for relief under the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations without regard to procedural default doctrines, and if not should a federal court give effect, as a matter of judicial comity and uniform treaty interpretation, to the ICJ's judgment?

From the per curiam opinion:

After we granted certiorari, Medellin filed an application for a writ of habeas corpus in the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, relying in part upon a memorandum from President George W. Bush that was issued after we granted certiorari. This state-court proceeding may provide Medellin with the very reconsideration of his Vienna Convention claim that he now seeks in the present proceeding. The merits briefing in this case also has revealed a number of hurdles Medellin must surmount before qualifying for federal habeas relief in this proceeding, based on the resolution of the questions he has presented here. For these reasons we dismiss the writ as improvidently granted.

Concurring: Jusice Ginsburg (joined by Justice Scalia in part II)
Dissenting: Justice O'Connor (joined by Justices Stevens, Souter and Breyer)
Dissenting: Justice Souter
Dissenting: Justice Breyer (joined by Justice Stevens)

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Argued: December 6, 2004
Decided: June 13, 2005
For Case Analysis: See ABA Preview 141

Was the trial court's decision to accept the State's race-neutral explanations for excluding 91% of the eligible black venire panelists in the defendant's capital trial an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented in the State court proceeding?

Yes. The Court determined that Miller-El is entitled to prevail on his Batson claim and thus is entitled to habeas relief.

From the opinion by Justice Souter (joined by Justices Stevens, O'Connor, Kennedy, Ginsburg, and Breyer):

In the course of drawing a jury to try a black defendant, 10 of the 11 qualified black venire panel members were peremptorily struck. At least two of them, Fields and Warren, were ostensibly acceptable to prosecutors seeking a death verdict, and Fields was ideal. The prosecutors' chosen race-neutral reasons for the strikes do not hold up and are so far at odds with the evidence that pretext is the fair conclusion, indicating the very discrimination the explanations were meant to deny.

Concurring: Justice Breyer
Dissenting: Justice Thomas (joined by Chief Justice Rehnquist and Justice Scalia)

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Argued: January 12, 2005
Decided: March 30, 2005
For Case Analysis: See ABA Preview 213

Does a federal court have discretion to stay a mixed petition (one that includes several claims that have not been exhausted in state court) in order to allow a habeas petitioner to present his unexhausted claims to the state court, and then return to federal court for review of the perfected petition if necessary?

Yes. The Court decided that a federal court has discretion to hold a mixed petition in abeyance. This means that petitioners who file a mixed petition in federal court within the 1-year statute of limitations imposed by the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA), may seek to have the federal petition stayed while they exhaust the state claims, with the result that they can return to federal court without being time-barred.

From the opinion of the Court delivered by Justice O'Connor (joined by Chief Justice Rehnquist, and Justices Stevens, Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas, Ginsburg, and Breyer):

Fourteen years before Congress enacted AEDPA, we held in Rose v. Lundy, 455 U. S. 509 (1982), that federal district courts may not adjudicate mixed petitions for habeas corpus, that is, petitions containing both exhausted and unexhausted claims. We reasoned that the interests of comity and federalism dictate that state courts must have the first opportunity to decide a petitioner's claims… The enactment of AEDPA in 1996 dramatically altered the landscape for federal habeas corpus petitions. AEDPA preserved Lundy's total exhaustion requirement, but it also imposed a 1-year statute of limitations on the filing of federal petitions… As a result of the interplay between AEDPA's 1-year statute of limitations and Lundy's dismissal requirement, petitioners who come to federal court with "mixed" petitions run the risk of forever losing their opportunity for any federal review of their unexhausted claims… For these reasons, stay and abeyance should be available only in limited circumstances… the district court's discretion in structuring the stay is limited by the timeliness concerns reflected in AEDPA.

Concurring: Justice Stevens (joined by Justices Ginsburg and Breyer)
Concurring in part and concurring in the judgment: Justice Souter (joined by Justices Ginsburg and Breyer)

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Argued: January 18, 2005
Decided: June 20, 2005
For Case Analysis: See ABA Preview 218

Did defense counsel provide ineffective assistance at capital sentencing when they failed to look at a file they knew the prosecution planned to cull for aggravating evidence?

Yes. Even when a capital defendant and his family members have suggested that no mitigating evidence is available, his lawyer is bound to make reasonable efforts to obtain and review material that counsel knows the prosecution will probably rely on as evidence of aggravation at the trial's sentencing phase.

From the opinion by Justice Souter (joined by Justices Stevens, O'Connor, Ginsburg, and Breyer):

Counsel fell short here because they failed to make reasonable efforts to review the prior conviction file, despite knowing that the prosecution intended to introduce Rompilla's prior conviction not merely by entering a notice of conviction into evidence but by quoting damaging testimony of the rape victim in that case. The unreasonableness of attempting no more than they did was heightened by the easy availability of the file at the trial courthouse, and the great risk that testimony about a similar violent crime would hamstring counsel's chosen defense of residual doubt. It is owing to these circumstances that the state courts were objectively unreasonable in concluding that counsel could reasonably decline to make any effort to review the file. Other situations, where a defense lawyer is not charged with knowledge that the prosecutor intends to use a prior conviction in this way, might well warrant a different assessment.

Concurring: Justice O'Connor
Dissenting: Justice Kennedy (joined by Chief Justice Rehnquist and Justices Scalia and Thomas)

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Argued: October 13, 2004
Decided: March 1, 2005
For Case Analysis: See ABA Preview 17

Does the Cruel and Unusual Punishment Clause of the Eighth Amendment ban imposition of a capital sentence upon an individual who was under the age of 18 at the time he committed his capital offense?

Yes. The Court decided that the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments forbid imposing the death penalty on offenders who were under the age of 18 when they committed their crimes.

From the opinion by Justice Kennedy (joined by Justices Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg and Breyer):

A majority of States have rejected the imposition of the death penalty on juvenile offenders under 18, and we now hold this is required by the Eighth Amendment. Because the death penalty is the most severe punishment, the Eighth Amendment applies to it with special force. Capital punishment must be limited to those offenders who commit "a narrow category of the most serious crimes" and whose extreme culpability makes them "the most deserving of execution." Three general differences between juveniles under 18 and adults demonstrate that juvenile offenders cannot with reliability be classified among the worst offenders. First, as any parent knows and as the scientific and sociological studies respondent and his amici cite tend to confirm, "[a] lack of maturity and an underdeveloped sense of responsibility are found in youth more often than in adults and are more understandable among the young. These qualities often result in impetuous and ill-considered actions and decisions."… The second area of difference is that juveniles are more vulnerable or susceptible to negative influences and outside pressures, including peer pressure… The third broad difference is that the character of a juvenile is not as well formed as that of an adult… These differences render suspect any conclusion that a juvenile falls among the worst offenders.

Concurring: Justice Stevens (joined by Justice Ginsburg)
Dissenting: Justice O'Connor
Dissenting: Justice Scalia (joined by Chief Justice Rehnquist and Justice Thomas)

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DEATH PENALTY
Smith v. Texas
Docket No. 04-5323
Reversed: The Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas

Argued: N/A
Decided: November 15, 2004
For Case Analysis: N/A

May a capital jury be directed to give effect to mitigation evidence, but only by negating what would otherwise be affirmative responses to two special issues relating to deliberateness and future dangerousness?

No. The Court reasoned that in Penry v. Johnson, 532 U. S. 782 (2001) ( Penry II), it had held a similar "nullification instruction" constitutionally inadequate because it did not allow the jury to give " full consideration and full effect to mitigating circumstances" in choosing the defendant's appropriate sentence.

From the per curiam opinion:

Just as in Penry II, petitioner's jury was required by law to answer a verdict form that made no mention whatsoever of mitigation evidence. And just as in Penry II, the burden of proof on the State was tied by law to findings of deliberateness and future dangerousness that had little, if anything, to do with the mitigation evidence petitioner presented. Even if we were to assume that the jurors could easily and effectively have comprehended an orally delivered instruction directing them to disregard, in certain limited circumstances, a mandatory written instruction given at a later occasion, that would not change the fact that the "jury was essentially instructed to return a false answer to a special issue in order to avoid a death sentence."

Dissenting: Justice Scalia (joined by Justice Thomas)