Morris, Superintendent, Southern Ohio Correctional Facility v. Mathews (475 U.S. 237)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided February 26, 1986 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 475 U.S. 237 · 106 S. Ct. 1032
- Decided
- February 26, 1986
- Term
- October Term 1985
- Vote
- 7–2
- Majority author
- Justice White
- Issue area
- Criminal Procedure
- Disposition
- Reversed and remanded
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Conservative
Opinion excerpt
Justice White delivered the opinion of the Court. The question presented in this case is whether a state appellate court provided an adequate remedy for a violation of the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment, by modifying a jeopardy-barred conviction to that of a lesser included offense that is not jeopardy barred. I On February 17,1978, respondent James Michael Mathews and Steven Daugherty robbed the Alexandria Bank in Alexandria, Ohio. After an automobile chase, the police finally surrounded the two men when they stopped at a farmhouse. Soon thereafter, the police heard shots fired inside the house, and respondent then emerged from the home and surrendered to police. When the officers entered the house, they found Daugherty dead, shot once in the head and once in the chest. The police also found the money stolen from the bank hidden in the pantry. Once in custody, respondent gave a series of statements to law enforcement officials. In his first statement, given one hour after his surrender, respondent claimed that Daugherty and another man had forced him to aid in the bank robbery by threatening to kill both respondent and his girlfriend. Respondent denied shooting Daugherty. In the second statement, given the same day, respondent again denied shooting Daugherty, but admitted that no other man was involved with the robbery, and that he and Daugherty alone had…
Excerpt of a 44,746-character opinion. The full text and citation network load in the interactive viewer above.