Patton et al. v. Yount (467 U.S. 1025)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided June 26, 1984 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 467 U.S. 1025 · 104 S. Ct. 2885
- Decided
- June 26, 1984
- Term
- October Term 1983
- Vote
- 6–2
- Majority author
- Justice Powell
- Issue area
- Criminal Procedure
- Disposition
- Reversed
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Conservative
Opinion excerpt
Justice Powell delivered the opinion of the Court. This case brings before us a claim that pretrial publicity so infected a state criminal trial as to deny the defendant his Sixth Amendment right to an “impartial jury.” On April 28, 1966, the body of Pamela Rimer, an 18-year-old high school student, was found in a wooded area near her home in Luthersburg, Clearfield County, Pa. There were numerous wounds about her head and cuts on her throat and neck. An autopsy revealed that she died of strangulation when blood from her wounds was drawn into her lungs. The autopsy showed no indication that she had been sexually assaulted. At about 5:45 the following morning, respondent Yount appeared at the State Police Substation in nearby DuBois. Yount, who had been the victim’s high school mathematics teacher, proceeded to give the police oral and written confessions to the murder. The police refused to release the confession to the press, and it was not published until after it was read at Yount’s arraignment three days later. Record, Ex. P-l-a, P-l-d. At his trial in 1966, the confessions were admitted into evidence. Yount took the stand and claimed temporary insanity. The jury convicted him of first-degree murder and rape, and he was sentenced to life imprisonment. On direct appeal the Pennsylvania Supreme Court determined that under Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U. S. 436 (1966), police had…
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