Nicks v. Alabama
Citation | 101 L.Ed.2d 948,108 S.Ct. 2916,487 U.S. 1241 |
Decision Date | 30 June 1988 |
Docket Number | No. 87-6977,87-6977 |
Parties | Harry NICKS v. ALABAMA |
Court | United States Supreme Court |
See 487 U.S. 1263, 109 S.Ct. 27.
On petition for writ of certiorari to the Supreme Court of Alabama.
The petition for a writ of certiorari is denied.
I continue to believe that the death penalty is in all circumstances cruel and unusual punishment prohibited by the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments, see Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153, 231-241, 96 S.Ct. 2909, 2973-2977, 49 L.Ed.2d 859 (1976) (MARSHALL, J., dissenting). But even if I did not hold this view, I would grant the petition for writ of certiorari and vacate the death sentence in this case, because the sentence was secured in flagrant violation of our decision in Caldwell v. Mississippi, 472 U.S. 320, 105 S.Ct. 2633, 86 L.Ed.2d 231 (1985).
In Caldwell we vacated a sentence of death because the prosecutor "sought to minimize the jury's sense of the importance of its role" by stressing to the jury that its verdict would be subject to appellate review. Id., at 325, 105 S.Ct., at 2637. The prosecutor told the jury during the sentencing phase that Ibid. We held that "it is constitutionally impermissible to rest a death sentence on a determination made by a sentencer who has been led to believe that the responsibility for determining the appropriateness of the defendant's death rests elsewhere." Id., at 328-329, 105 S.Ct., at 2639-2640.
Petitioner's sentence of death cannot be squared with our decision in Caldwell. The prosecutor in this case made the following argument to the jury at the penalty phase of petitioner's trial:
This argument, perhaps even more baldly than the statements in Caldwell, sought to minimize the jury's sense of its awesome responsibility to determine whether petitioner would live or die by encouraging the jury to view its verdict as merely "advisory." This shifting of the jury's sense of...
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