Spenkelink v. Wainwright

• Decision Date: 22 May 1979
• Docket Number: No. A-1016,A-1016
• Citation: 99 S.Ct. 2091,60 L.Ed.2d 649,442 U.S. 1301
• Parties: John A. SPENKELINK, Applicant, v. Louie L. WAINWRIGHT et al
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

442 U.S. 1301

99 S.Ct. 2091

60 L.Ed.2d 649

John A. SPENKELINK, Applicant,

v Louie L. WAINWRIGHT et al.

No. A-1016.

May 22, 1979.

Mr. Justice REHNQUIST, Circuit Justice.

This application for stay has come to me by reason of the unavailability of Mr. Justice POWELL. On December 20, 1973, following a trial and jury verdict, applicant was sentenced to death pursuant to the Florida statute that we upheld in Proffitt v. Florida, 428 U.S. 242, 96 S.Ct. 2960, 49 L.Ed.2d 913 (1976), for a murder committed in February 1973. On applicant's appeal, the Supreme Court of Florida affirmed both the conviction and sentence, Spenkelink v. State, 313 So.2d 666 (1975), and this Court denied certiorari. 428 U.S. 911, 96 S.Ct. 3227, 49 L.Ed.2d 1221 (1976). Applicant next sought executive clemency from the Governor of Florida, but his request for that relief was denied on September 12, 1977, and at the same time the Governor signed a death warrant setting applicant's execution for 8:30 a. m. on September 19, 1977. The following day, applicant filed a motion collateral relief in the Florida trial court that had convicted him; this motion, too, was denied, the Supreme Court of Florida affirmed its denial, Spenkelink v. State, 350 So.2d 85 (1977), and we again denied certiorari. 434 U.S. 960, 98 S.Ct. 492, 54 L.Ed.2d 320 (1977).

One day after he filed his petition for collateral relief in state court, however, applicant filed a petition for federal habeas corpus in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida, which transferred the case to the Northern District of Florida. That court stayed the execution and scheduled an evidentiary hearing for September 21, 1977. At that time a hearing was held, which lasted from the late morning into the evening and produced over 300 pages of testimony. On September 23, the District Court dismissed the petition and ordered that the stay of execution previously issued by it terminate at noon on September 30. But the District Court also granted applicant a certificate of probable cause to appeal, and the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit then stayed applicant's execution pending its decision of his appeal.

On August 21, 1978, a panel of the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed the judgment of the District Court. Spenkelink v. Wainwright, 578 F.2d 582. In an opinion comprising 39 pages in the Federal Reporter, the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit dealt at length with all of applicant's claims, which had previously been rejected by the United States District Court and by the Supreme Court of Florida. It affirmed the judgment of the District Court, and we again denied certiorari on March 26, 1979, with Mr. Justice BRENNAN and Mr. Justice MARSHALL dissenting on the basis of their views set forth in Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153, 227, 231, 96 S.Ct. 2909, 2950, 2971, 2973, 49 L.Ed.2d 859 (1976). 440 U.S. 976, 99 S.Ct. 1548, 59 L.Ed.2d 796.

According to the application now before me, the Governor of Florida again denied executive clemency on Friday, May 18, 1979, and signed a death warrant authorizing the execution of applicant on Wednesday, May 23, 1979, at 7 a. m., e.d.t. On Monday, May 21, applicant filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Florida requesting the court to stay his execution pending consideration and final determination of the petition. According to the applicant, the only point he seeks to preserve in his application to me for a stay is that under this Court's decision in Presnell v. Georgia, 439 U.S. 14, 99 S.Ct. 235, 58 L.Ed.2d 207 (1978), "the failure to accord petitioner adequate advance notice of the aggravating circumstances alleged by the prosecution as the basis for seeking the death penalty" denied applicant rights secured to him by the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States. In Presnell, supra, this Court held that the "fundamental principles of procedural fairness" enunciated in Cole v. Arkansas, 333 U.S. 196, 68 S.Ct. 514, 92 L.Ed. 644 (1948), "apply with no less force at the penalty phase of a trial in a capital case than they do in the guilt-determining phase of any criminal trial." 439 U.S., at 16, 99 S.Ct., at 236. Cole, in turn, had held that "[t]o conform to due process of law, petitioners were entitled to have the validity of their convictions appraised on consideration of the case as it was tried and as the issues were determined in the trial court." 333 U.S., at 202, 68 S.Ct., at 517.

This claim was submitted to and denied by the District Court for the Northern District of Florida on Monday, May 21, 1979. The District Court simultaneously entered a second order refusing certification of the appeal under both local and statutory rules, and denying a stay of execution pending appeal. Today, a panel of the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit has, by a divided vote, denied applicant a certificate of probable cause, a certificate for leave to appeal in forma pauperis, and his motion for a stay of execution.^*

Throughout these many hearings, appeals, and applications, there has been virtually no dispute that substantial evidence supported the jury's verdict that applicant was guilty of first-degree murder, or that the Florida state trial judge had ample basis for following the jury's recommendation that the death penalty be imposed. The Supreme Court of Florida in its opinion affirming applicant's conviction stated:

"As more fully set out above the record shows this crime to be premeditated, especially cruel, atrocious, and heinous and in connection with robbery of the victim to secure return of money claimed by Appellant. The aggravating circumstances justify imposition of the death sentence. Both Appellant and his victim were career criminals and Appellant showed no mitigating factors to require a more lenient sentence." 313 So.2d, at 671.

The Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, in affirming the denial of federal habeas relief, said:

"On February 4, 1973, petitioner John A. Spenkelink, a

24-year-old white male and twice convicted felon, who had escaped from a California correctional camp, murdered his traveling companion, Joseph J. Szymankiewicz, a white male, in their Tallahassee, Florida motel room. Spenkelink shot Szymankiewicz, who was asleep in bed, once in the head just behind the left ear and a second time in the back, which fragmented the spine, ruptured the aorta, and resulted in the victim's death. [Spenkelink]...