Hale v. Oklahoma

1988-10-03

Headline: Court refused to review a death sentence in a murder-kidnapping case, leaving the sentence in place while two Justices urged review and vacatur over unfair-trial and publicity concerns.

Holding: The Court denied review of the defendant’s petition for the death sentence, leaving the sentence in place while two Justices would have granted review and vacated it.

Real World Impact:

Leaves the defendant's death sentence in place by denying Supreme Court review.
Highlights that heavy local publicity and juror familiarity can raise fair-trial concerns.
Points to difficulty obtaining venue changes under Oklahoma's presumption against them.

Topics: death penalty, fair trial, pretrial publicity, jury impartiality, venue change

Summary

Background

A man was convicted of the murder-kidnapping of the son of a prominent local banking family and was sentenced to death. He asked the Supreme Court to review his case. The Supreme Court denied his petition for review and did not overturn the sentence.

Reasoning

The core question was whether the high court should take up the defendant’s challenge to the death sentence. The Court declined to hear the case and denied the petition for review; the opinion before the Court simply states the denial. Two Justices dissented, each saying they would have granted review and vacated the death sentence.

Real world impact

Because the Court refused to review, the death sentence remains in place for now and this denial is not a full decision on the merits; similar issues could be raised again in other proceedings. The dissents emphasize that extensive pretrial publicity, juror familiarity with the parties, and a state rule making venue changes difficult can seriously affect fairness of trials and sentencing.

Dissents or concurrances

Justice Brennan stated his view that the death penalty is always cruel and unusual and would have vacated the sentence. Justice Marshall agreed about vacating here and pointed to extensive pretrial publicity, jurors who knew the families, six jurors who admitted forming opinions, and Oklahoma’s strong presumption against venue changes as reasons the trial and sentencing were unfair.