David Bobby, Warden, Petitioner, v. Harry Mitts (563 U.S. 395)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided May 2, 2011 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 563 U.S. 395 · 131 S. Ct. 1762
- Decided
- May 2, 2011
- Term
- October Term 2010
- Vote
- 9–0
- Issue area
- Criminal Procedure
- Disposition
- Reversed
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Conservative
Opinion excerpt
Per Curiam. An Ohio jury convicted respondent Harry Mitts on two counts of aggravated murder and two counts of attempted murder. He was sentenced to death. At issue here is part of the jury instructions given during the penalty phase of Mitts’s trial. The instructions, in pertinent part, were as follows: “[Y]ou must determine beyond a reasonable doubt whether the aggravating circumstances, which [Mitts] was found guilty of committing in the separate counts, are sufficient to outweigh the mitigating factors you find are present in this case. “When all 12 members of the jury find by proof beyond a reasonable doubt that the aggravating circumstances in each separate count with which [Mitts] has been found guilty of committing outweigh the mitigating factors, if any, then you must return such finding to the Court. “I instruct you as a matter of law that if you make such a finding, then you must recommend to the Court that the sentence of death be imposed on [Mitts], “On the other hand, [if] after considering all the relevant evidence raised at trial, the evidence and testimony received at this hearing and the arguments of counsel, you find that the state of Ohio failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the aggravating circumstances with which [Mitts] was found guilty of committing outweigh the mitigating factors, you will then proceed to determine which of two possible life…
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