Murphy, District Judge, Fourth Judicial District of Nebraska, Douglas County v. Hunt (455 U.S. 478)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided March 2, 1982 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 455 U.S. 478 · 102 S. Ct. 1181
- Decided
- March 2, 1982
- Term
- October Term 1981
- Vote
- 8–1
- Issue area
- Judicial Power
- Disposition
- Vacated and remanded
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Conservative
Opinion excerpt
Per Curiam. Appellee Hunt was charged with first-degree sexual assault on a child and three counts of first-degree forcible sexual assault. He appeared on these charges in Omaha Municipal Court where his request for bail was denied. On May 23, 1980, a bail review hearing was held in Douglas County District Court. Relying on Art. I, § 9, of the Nebraska Constitution, Judge Murphy, appellant here, denied Hunt’s second application for bail. That section of the Nebraska Constitution provides in relevant part: “All persons shall be bailable . . . except for treason, sexual offenses involving penetration by force or against the will of the victim, and murder, where the proof is evident or the presumption great.” For purposes of his application for bail, Hunt’s counsel stipulated that, in this case, “the proof [was] evident and the presumption [was] great.” On June 9, 1980, pending trial on the charges against him, Hunt filed a complaint under 42 U. S. C. §1983 (1976 ed., Supp. V) in the United States District Court for the District of Nebraska. He claimed that Art. I, § 9, of the State Constitution, limiting bail in cases of first-degree sexual offenses, violated his federal constitutional rights to be free from excessive bail and cruel and unusual punishment, to due process and equal protection of the laws, and to the effective assistance of counsel under the Sixth, Eighth, and…
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