Owsley Stanley v. United States
The Supreme Court agreed to review only one part of a drug case — the possession conviction of three men involved in an LSD manufacturing operation — and sent that single count back to the appeals court to consider arguments raised by the Solicitor General.
The Court denied review of everything else in the case and said it was not taking any position on whether the Solicitor General's arguments about the possession count were correct, leaving that question entirely to the lower court.
“By this remand this Court intimates no view as to merits of the Solicitor General’s position.”
The Court declined to signal any opinion on the Solicitor General's suggestions before remand.
How it got here: The Ninth Circuit affirmed the petitioners' drug convictions; three of them asked the Supreme Court to review the possession count in light of the Solicitor General's views.
The Case in Depth
What happened
Government agents investigating drug activity in the San Francisco Bay Area used an undercover agent to infiltrate a group manufacturing and selling LSD. A search of a house turned up a home LSD lab and hundreds of grams of the drug. Several men, including Stanley, Thomas, Massey, and Spires, were convicted of manufacturing, possessing, and conspiring to distribute LSD, and the Ninth Circuit affirmed their convictions.
The question before the Court
Should three men's LSD possession convictions be sent back for another look based on new arguments from the government's own lawyer?
Why it matters
The order shows how the Supreme Court can narrowly intervene in a criminal case without deciding anything on the merits, letting a lower court re-examine a single issue. For the three men involved, it means their possession convictions remain in legal limbo while the appeals court takes another look, even though their other convictions are final.
What changes now
The possession count for the three men goes back to the Ninth Circuit, which must consider the Solicitor General's suggestions about how that count should be treated. All other convictions and issues in the case remain final because the Court denied review of them. This is not a final ruling on the merits of the possession count — it is a procedural order sending one narrow issue back for further consideration.
What this does not decide
The order does not decide whether the possession convictions were valid or whether the Solicitor General's suggestions have merit. It also does not disturb the manufacturing or conspiracy convictions, or address Justice Douglas's argument that the possession was already a crime under the law in effect when the offenses occurred.
Concurrences and dissents
How the Justices voted
Dissent (1). Justice Douglas (author).
Dissent — Justice Douglas
“We distort the record when we treat the case as “possession” of a drug for .purposes of manufacture.”Douglas argued the drug had already been manufactured and was being held for sale, not for manufacturing.
Justice Douglas argued the record clearly showed the LSD was possessed for sale, which was already a crime under the statute in effect when the offenses were committed, so there was no need to send the case back. He noted a later 1968 amendment criminalizing all possession did not apply retroactively to these earlier offenses. He would have denied certiorari entirely and objected to remanding the case for reconsideration. Read the full dissent →
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- The Court limited its grant of review to a single count — possession of LSD — as it applied to three of the several convicted men, leaving the rest of the case and the other men's convictions untouched by denying certiorari on those points.
- Rather than resolving whether the possession convictions were valid, the Court noted that the Solicitor General, representing the government, had filed suggestions about how that count should be handled and directed the Court of Appeals to weigh those suggestions itself.
- The Court explicitly disclaimed any view on whether the Solicitor General's suggestions had merit, leaving that determination for the Court of Appeals to work out on remand.
- Two justices, White and Blackmun, dissented from sending the count back at all, indicating they would simply have denied review of the entire case.