Howell v. Mississippi

Background

Marlon Howell was convicted and sentenced to death for killing Hugh David Pernell during an early-morning encounter while Pernell delivered newspapers. At trial Howell argued he was elsewhere and that the evidence did not prove the killing occurred during an attempted robbery. He asked the trial court to add jury instructions for manslaughter or simple murder, but the court refused. The Mississippi Supreme Court reviewed dozens of claims, rejected the lesser-offense instruction because the facts did not support it, and affirmed Howell’s conviction and death sentence.

Reasoning

Howell asked this Court to review the case, arguing that refusing the lesser-offense instructions violated the Constitution under the standard of Beck v. Alabama. The Justices limited their inquiry to whether Howell had properly raised that federal constitutional claim in the Mississippi Supreme Court. They found he had not: his brief relied on a chain of state cases and did not plainly cite the Constitution or federal decisions or label the claim as federal. Under the statute governing review (28 U.S.C. §1257) and long-standing practice, this Court will not decide a federal-law challenge unless it was clearly presented to the state court that decided the case. Because Howell failed to do that, the Court dismissed the case as improvidently granted and did not decide the constitutional question.

Real world impact

The decision means this Court will not consider Howell’s constitutional argument now, and his conviction and death sentence remain in place for the time being. It reinforces that people seeking U.S. Supreme Court review must clearly present federal constitutional claims in state-court briefs if they want this Court to decide them.