Joseph Roger O'dell, Iii v. J. D. Netherland, Warden, et al. (521 U.S. 151)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided June 19, 1997 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 521 U.S. 151 · 117 S. Ct. 1969
- Decided
- June 19, 1997
- Term
- October Term 1996
- Vote
- 5–4
- Majority author
- Justice O'Connor
- Issue area
- Criminal Procedure
- Disposition
- Affirmed
- Outcome
- Petitioning party lost
- Ideological direction
- Conservative
Opinion excerpt
Justice Thomas delivered the opinion of the Court. This case presents the question whether the rule set out in Simmons v. South Carolina, 512 U. S. 154 (1994) — which requires that a capital defendant be permitted to inform his sentencing jury that he is parole ineligible if the prosecution argues that he presents a future danger — was “new” within the meaning of Teague v. Lane, 489 U. S. 288 (1989), and thereby inapplicable to an already final death sentence. We conclude that it was new, and that it cannot, therefore, be used to disturb petitioner’s death sentence, which had been final for six years when Simmons was decided. Helen Schartner was last seen alive late in the evening of February 5, 1985, leaving the County Line Lounge in Virginia Beach, Virginia. Her lifeless body was discovered the next day, in a muddy field across a highway from the lounge. Schartner’s head had been laid open by several blows with the barrel of a handgun, and she had been strangled with such violence that bones in her neck were broken and finger imprints were left on her skin. An abundance of physical evidence linked petitioner to the crime scene and crime— among other things, tire tracks near Schartner’s body were consistent with petitioner’s car, and bodily fluids recovered from Schartner’s body matched petitioner. He was indicted on counts of capital murder, rape, sodomy, and abduction…
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