Bobby Lee Ramdass v. Ronald J. Angelone, Director, Virginia Department of Corrections (530 U.S. 156)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided June 12, 2000 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 530 U.S. 156 · 120 S. Ct. 2113
- Decided
- June 12, 2000
- Term
- October Term 1999
- Vote
- 5–4
- Majority author
- Justice Kennedy
- Issue area
- Criminal Procedure
- Disposition
- Affirmed
- Outcome
- Petitioning party lost
- Ideological direction
- Conservative
Opinion excerpt
Justice Kennedy announced the judgment of the Court and delivered an opinion, in which The Chief Justice, Justice Scaua, and Justice Thomas join. Petitioner received a death sentence in the Commonwealth of Virginia for murder in the course of robbery. On review of a decision denying relief in federal habeas corpus, he seeks to set aside the death sentence in reliance on Simmons v. South Carolina, 512 U. S. 154 (1994). He argues the jury should have been instructed of his parole ineligibility based on prior criminal convictions. We reject, his claims and conclude Simmons is inapplicable to petitioner since he was not parole ineligible when the jury considered his case, nor would he have been parole ineligible by reason of a conviction in the ease then under consideration by the jury. He is not entitled to the relief he seeks. hH Sometime after midnight on September 2, 1992, Mohammed Kayani was working as a convenience store clerk. Petitioner Bobby Lee Ramdass and his accomplices entered the store and forced the customers to the floor at gunpoint. While petitioner ordered Kayani to open the store’s safe, accomplices took the customers’ wallets, money from the cash registers, cigarettes, Kool Aid, and lottery tickets. When Kayani fumbled in an initial attempt to open the safe, petitioner squatted next to him and yelled at him to open the safe. At close range he held the gun to…
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