White v. Woodall (572 U.S. 415)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided April 23, 2014 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 572 U.S. 415 · 134 S. Ct. 1697
- Decided
- April 23, 2014
- Term
- October Term 2013
- Vote
- 6–3
- Majority author
- Justice Scalia
- Issue area
- Criminal Procedure
- Disposition
- Reversed and remanded
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Conservative
Opinion excerpt
Justice SCALIA delivered the opinion of the Court. Respondent brutally raped, slashed with a box cutter, and drowned a 16-year-old high-school student. After pleading guilty to murder, rape, and kidnaping, he was sentenced to death. The Kentucky Supreme Court affirmed the sentence, and we denied certiorari. Ten years later, the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit granted respondent's petition for a writ of habeas corpus on his Fifth Amendment claim. In so doing, it disregarded the limitations of 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)-a provision of law that some federal judges find too confining, but that all federal judges must obey. We reverse. I On the evening of January 25, 1997, Sarah Hansen drove to a convenience store to rent a movie. When she failed to return home several hours later, her family called the police. Officers eventually found the vehicle Hansen had been driving a short distance from the convenience store. They followed a 400-to 500-foot trail of blood from the van to a nearby lake, where Hansen's unclothed, dead body was found floating in the water. Hansen's "throat had been slashed twice with each cut approximately 3.5 to 4 inches long," and "[h]er windpipe was totally severed." Woodall v. Commonwealth, 63 S.W.3d 104, 114 (Ky.2002). Authorities questioned respondent when they learned that he had been in the convenience store on the night of the murder. Respondent gave…
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