Barclay v. Florida (463 U.S. 939)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided July 6, 1983 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 463 U.S. 939 · 103 S. Ct. 3418
- Decided
- July 6, 1983
- Term
- October Term 1982
- Vote
- 6–3
- Majority author
- Justice Rehnquist
- Issue area
- Criminal Procedure
- Disposition
- Affirmed
- Outcome
- Petitioning party lost
- Ideological direction
- Conservative
Opinion excerpt
Justice Rehnquist announced the judgment of the Court and delivered an opinion, in which The Chief Justice, Justice White, and Justice O’Connor joined. The central question in this case is whether Florida may constitutionally impose the death penalty on petitioner Elwood Barclay when one of the “aggravating circumstances” relied upon by the trial judge to support the sentence was not among those established by the Florida death penalty statute. The facts, as found by the sentencing judge and quoted by the Florida Supreme Court, are as follows: “[T]he four defendants were part of a group that termed itself the ‘BLACK LIBERATION ARMY’ (BLA), and whose apparent sole purpose was to indiscriminately kill white persons and to start a revolution and a racial war. “The testimony showed that on the evening of June 17, 1974, Dougan, Barclay, Crittendon, Evans and William Hearn set out in a car armed with a twenty two caliber pistol and a knife with the intent to kill . . . any white person that they came upon under such advantageous circumstances that they could murder him, her or them. “That as they drove around the City of Jacksonville they made several stops and observed white persons as possible victims, but decided that the circumstances were not advantageous and that they might be observed or thwarted .... At one stop, Dougan wrote out a note — which was to be placed on the body…
Excerpt of a 106,590-character opinion. The full text and citation network load in the interactive viewer above.