Hunter v. California

Background

Michael Wayne Hunter, a man convicted of murder and sentenced to death, asked the trial court to grant use immunity to his girlfriend so she would testify at his trial and sentencing. She invoked the Fifth Amendment and would not testify. The trial court refused to compel immunity, and the California Supreme Court affirmed. The U.S. Supreme Court denied review of the case.

Reasoning

The core question is whether a criminal defendant has a constitutional right to force a court to give immunity to a reluctant witness so the defendant can use that testimony in his defense, especially at the penalty phase of a capital case. Justice Marshall’s dissent explains that defendants have their strongest right to present any mitigating evidence at sentencing, and that the California court wrongly applied a high threshold requiring testimony to be “clearly exculpatory and essential.” He argues that if such a right exists, the absence of the girlfriend’s immunized testimony would require overturning the death sentence.

Real world impact

Because the ruling was a denial of review, the state court’s decision and the death sentence remain in place for now. If the Court were to decide the question in the defendant’s favor, courts might be required to order use immunity more often in capital sentencing, allowing more mitigating evidence to reach jurors and potentially changing some death sentences.

Dissents or concurrances

Justice Marshall dissented from the denial of review and would have granted the petition to decide the immunity question; he also said he would vacate the death sentence on Eighth Amendment grounds.