McDonald v. Missouri
Headline: Death-penalty cases from multiple states: Court declines to review, leaving state death sentences intact while two Justices dissent and argue capital punishment is always unconstitutional.
Holding: The Court declined to review multiple state death-penalty cases, leaving the lower-court death sentences in place; Justices Brennan and Marshall dissented, urging vacatur of those sentences.
- Leaves death sentences in these cases unchanged.
- Keeps lower-court death-penalty rulings in force for now.
- Does not resolve the national legality of the death penalty.
Summary
Background
A group of appeals and state-court cases raising death-penalty questions came to the Supreme Court from several jurisdictions, including Texas, Georgia, Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, Alabama, Missouri, and the Fourth Circuit. The Court was asked to review the lower courts’ rulings about individual death sentences. The order in the record shows the Court declined to take these cases and the reported citations for the lower decisions are listed.
Reasoning
The Court’s action here is a denial of review and does not include a full opinion explaining why the petitions were refused. Because the Court declined to hear the cases, it did not decide the underlying constitutional claims about the death sentences. The short record does, however, record a formal dissent from Justices Brennan and Marshall urging a different outcome.
Real world impact
Practically, the denial means the death sentences challenged in these filings remain in effect as the lower courts left them. This order does not change or resolve the national legal question about the death penalty itself. The decision is a refusal to review these particular cases rather than a ruling on the constitutionality of capital punishment.
Dissents or concurrances
Justices Brennan and Marshall filed a dissent. They said they adhere to their view that the death penalty is in all circumstances "cruel and unusual punishment" under the Constitution and stated they would grant review and vacate the death sentences in these cases.
Opinions in this case:
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