SPENCER
v.
GEORGIA

U.S. | 1991-06-03
No. 90-7435
500 U.S. 960 Supreme Court of the United States (1991) Positive Treatment
Cited by 23 cases
Topics
Juror Affidavits Mccleskey V. Kemp Teague V. Lane Adequate And Independent State Grounds Doctrine

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Concurrence
Justice Kennedy,

Justice Kennedy,

concurring.

A majority of the Court has voted to deny certiorari and, after initial reservations, I now concur in that judgment. This case appears to present important questions of federal law, and if I thought our decision in Teague v. Lane, 489 U. S. 288 (1989), would prevent us from reaching those issues on federal habeas review, I would have voted to grant certiorari. I have confidence that petitioner’s equal protection claim will not be barred in federal habeas corpus proceedings by Teague and its progeny, and that habeas review presents an appropriate and adequate forum for making a record and resolving petitioner’s contentions.

Petitioner James Lee Spencer, a black man, was convicted and sentenced to death by a jury made up of six whites and six blacks, after the prosecutor used nine peremptory challenges to exclude black venirepersons from the jury. Petitioner argued that racial bias had infected the jury deliberations at his trial, see McCleskey v. Kemp, 481 U. S. 279 (1987), submitting the affidavit of a juror in support of this claim. The juror alleged that other jurors uttered racial slurs concerning petitioner during deliberations. The affiant also purported to know that petitioner’s race was an important factor in the decision of certain jurors to convict petitioner and sentence him to death. Though the Georgia Supreme Court’s decision is somewhat ambiguous, its rejection of petitioner’s McCleskey claim rested at least in part on Ga. Code Ann. § 17-9-41 (1990), which provides that “affidavits of jurors may be taken to sustain but not to impeach their verdict.”

State rules of evidence have no direct application in federal habeas courts. Those courts, however, will have to determine whether the statute relied on by the Georgia Supreme Court to reject petitioner’s McCleskey claim represents an adequate state ground for its decision, barring federal court review. See James v. Kentucky, 466 U. S. 341 (1984); Henry v. Mississippi, 379 U. S. 443 (1965); Brown v. Western R. Co. of Alabama, 338 U. S. 294 (1949); Davis v. Wechsler, 263 U. S. 22 (1923); Meltzer, State Court Forfeitures of Federal Rights, 99 Harv. L. Rev. 1128, 1142-1145 (1986); see also Howlett v. Rose, 496 U. S. 356 (1990); Rock v. Arkansas, 483 U. S. 44 (1987); Green v. Georgia, 442 U. S. 95 (1979) (per curiam).

Dissent
Justice Marshall,

Justice Marshall,

dissenting.

Adhering to my view that the death penalty is in all circumstances cruel and unusual punishment prohibited by the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments, Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U. S. 153, 231 (1976), I would grant certiorari and vacate the death sentence in this case.

Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus

Citator

Cited By (23 total)

  • Dusty Ray Spencer v. State, 645 So. 2d 377 (Fla. 1994)
    …presence or absence of adequate provocation, previous difficulties between the parties, the manner in which the homicide was committed, and the nature and manner of the wounds inflicted. Holton v. State, 573 So. 2d 284, 289 (Fla.1990), cert, denied, 500 U.S. 960, 111 S.Ct. 2275, 114 L.Ed.2d 726 (1991). Our review of the record in this case reveals that there was sufficient evidence from which the jury could have inferred premeditation and rejected Spencer’s contention that this was a “heat of passion” kill…
  • Finney v. State, 660 So. 2d 674 (Fla. 1995)
    …m which jury could find premeditation); Holton v. State, 573 So. 2d 284, 289-90 (Fla.1990) (circumstantial evidence rule does not require the jury to believe defendant’s version of events where State has produced conflicting evidence), cert. denied, 500 U.S. 960, 111 S.Ct. 2275, 114 L.Ed.2d 726 (1991). Moreover, there was sufficient evidence to support a conviction of first-degree felony murder with robbery as the underlying felony. Finney’s contention that the State failed to prove that a robbery occurre…
  • Norton v. State, 709 So. 2d 87 (Fla. 1997)
    …e a jury to believe the defendant’s version of events where the State has produced conflicting testimony. See Finney, 660 So. 2d at 680; Spencer v. State, 645 So. 2d 377, 381 (Fla.1994); Holton v. State, 573 So. 2d 284, 290 (Fla.1990), cert. denied, 500 U.S. 960, 111 S.Ct. 2275, 114 L.Ed.2d 726 (1991). Thus, the jury was free to disregard appellant’s alibi evidence.8 [*92] LACK OF PROOF OF PREMEDITATION As to appellant’s second claim, however, we find there is a complete absence of evidence to support a fi…

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