SPENCER
v.
ISRAEL, WARDEN

U.S. | 1983-04-18
No. 82-5950
460 U.S. 1102 Supreme Court of the United States (1983) Caution
Cited by 19 cases
Dissent
Justice Marshall,

Justice Marshall,

with whom Justice Brennan joins, dissenting.

A defendant’s right to due process is violated when the trial judge, in charging the jury on the issue of criminal intent, “require[s] the jury, if satisfied as to [specified] facts ... , to find intent unless the defendant offer[s] evidence to the contrary.” Sandstrom v. Montana, 442 U. S. 510, 515 (1979). Such a presumption is inconsistent with the constitutional requirement that the State prove every element of a criminal offense beyond a reasonable doubt. In re Winship, 397 U. S. 358 (1970). At petitioner’s trial on the charge of first-degree murder, the trial judge twice instructed the jury as follows:

“When there are no circumstances to prevent or rebut the presumption, the law presumes that a reasonable person intends all of the natural, probable and usual consequences of his deliberate acts. If one person assaults another violently with a dangerous weapon likely to kill, and the person thus assaulted dies therefrom, then when there are no circumstances to prevent or rebut the presumption, the legal and natural presumption is that death was intended.”

For reasons fully elaborated by three federal judges who have considered the constitutionality of an identical instruction, the instruction in this case was impermissible because it described a mandatory presumption of intent. See Pigee v. Israel, 670 F. 2d 690, 697-699 (CA7) (Baker, J., dissenting), cert. denied, 459 U. S. 846 (1982); Austin v. Israel, 516 F. Supp. 461 (ED Wis. 1981); Harris v. Israel, 515 F. Supp. 568 (ED Wis. 1981). The decision below, which denied petitioner’s request for the issuance of a certificate of probable cause to appeal, therefore cannot be squared with Sand-strom. I would grant certiorari to correct the lower court’s clear departure from this Court’s precedents.

Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus

Citator

Cited By (19 total)

  • Hendrix v. Raybestos-Manhattan, Inc., 776 F.2d 1492 (11th Cir. 1985)
    …gth of time required to conclude multiple suits as against a single one, and the relative expense to all concerned of the single-trial, multiple-trial alternatives. Arnold v. Eastern Air Lines, Inc., 681 F. 2d 186, 193 (4th Cir.1982), cert. denied, 460 U.S. 1102, 103 S.Ct. 1801, 76 L.Ed.2d 366 (1983) and 464 U.S. 1040, 104 S.Ct. 703, 79 L.Ed.2d 168 (1984). The court must also bear in mind the extent to which the risks of prejudice and confusion that might attend a consolidated trial can be alleviated by uti…
  • Payton v. Abbott Labs, 780 F.2d 147 (1st Cir. 1985)
    …roper elements. Durant v. Surety Homes Corp., 582 F. 2d 1081, 1085-86 (7th Cir.1978) (footnotes omitted). See Arnold v. Eastern Air Lines, Inc., 681 F. 2d 186, 206 (4th Cir.1982), cert. denied, sub nom. Aetna Casualty & Surety Co. v. United States, 460 U.S. 1102, 103 S.Ct. 1801, 76 L.Ed.2d 366 (1983); Jacoby v. Johnson, 120 F. 487, 488 (3d Cir.1903). If the court’s action is viewed as an additur, it is constitutionally proscribed. Dimick v. Schiedt, 293 U.S. 474, 486-87, 55 S.Ct. 296, 301, 79 L.Ed. 603 (19…
  • Jones v. City OF Alton, 757 F.2d 878 (7th Cir. 1985)
    …U.S. 461, 102 S.Ct. 1883, 72 L.Ed.2d 262 (1982) (issue preclusion); id. at 481-82 n. 22,102 S.Ct. at 1897 n. 22 (claim preclusion would apply as well); Unger v. Consolidated Foods Corp., 693 F. 2d 703 (7th Cir.1982) (issue preclusion), cert. denied, 460 U.S. 1102, 103 S.Ct. 1801, 76 L.Ed.2d 366 and — U.S.-, 104 S.Ct. 549, 78 L.Ed.2d 723 (1983); Lee v. [*884] City of Peoria, 685 F. 2d at 198-99 (claim preclusion). See also Migra, 104 S.Ct. at 896. One general limitation is that the concepts of claim and is…
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