Frey v. Francis
Headline: Court declines to review multiple death-penalty cases, leaving lower courts’ death sentences intact while two Justices dissent and urge vacating those sentences as unconstitutional.
Holding: The Court refused to take up review of these death-penalty cases and thus left the lower courts’ death sentences in place, over the objection of two Justices.
- Leaves lower courts’ death sentences in place for the listed cases.
- Shows two Justices oppose the death penalty in all cases.
- Supreme Court declined review, so no change to the sentences.
Summary
Background
These entries concern a group of death-penalty cases coming from several state supreme courts and appellate tribunals. The opinion lists lower courts including Pennsylvania’s high court, the Eleventh Circuit, Illinois’s Supreme Court, Arkansas’s Supreme Court, Texas and Tennessee criminal appellate courts, North Carolina’s Supreme Court, and Kentucky’s Supreme Court. The Supreme Court declined to review those lower-court rulings, and the short entry records that certiorari was denied.
Reasoning
The central procedural question was whether the Justices would take up review of multiple cases that left defendants with death sentences. The Court chose not to grant review, so it left the outcomes below intact and did not alter the sentences. Two Justices, Brennan and Marshall, dissented from that denial. They stated they adhere to their long-standing view that the death penalty is always cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments and said they would have granted review and vacated the death sentences.
Real world impact
As a practical result, the individuals sentenced to death in the listed cases remain subject to those sentences because the Supreme Court refused to intervene by taking the cases. The order leaves the state and lower federal court judgments in place. The dissent highlights continuing disagreement among Justices about the constitutionality of capital punishment, but the majority declined to change the law or the sentences in this order.
Dissents or concurrances
Justice Brennan and Justice Marshall wrote a brief dissent saying they would grant review and vacate the death sentences, reaffirming their view that the death penalty is categorically barred by the Constitution and citing their earlier decision in Gregg.
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