Zant, Warden v. Stephens (462 U.S. 862)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided June 22, 1983 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 462 U.S. 862 · 103 S. Ct. 2733
- Decided
- June 22, 1983
- Term
- October Term 1982
- Vote
- 7–2
- Majority author
- Justice Stevens
- Issue area
- Criminal Procedure
- Disposition
- Reversed
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Conservative
Opinion excerpt
Justice Stevens delivered the opinion of the Court. The question presented is whether respondent’s death penalty must be vacated because one of the three statutory aggravating circumstances found by the jury was subsequently held to be invalid by the Supreme Court of Georgia, although the other two aggravating circumstances were specifically upheld. The answer depends on the function of the jury’s finding of an aggravating circumstance under Georgia’s capital sentencing statute, and on the reasons that the aggravating circumstance at issue in this particular case was found to be invalid. In January 1975 a jury in Bleckley County, Georgia, convicted respondent of the murder of Roy Asbell and sentenced him to death. The evidence received at the guilt phase of his trial, which included his confessions and the testimony of a number of witnesses, described these events: On August 19, 1974, while respondent was serving sentences for several burglary convictions and was also awaiting trial for escape, he again escaped from the Houston County Jail. In the next two days he committed two auto thefts, an armed robbery, and several burglaries. On August 21st, Roy Asbell interrupted respondent and an accomplice in the course of burglarizing the home of Asbell’s son in Twiggs County. Respondent beat Asbell, robbed him, and, with the aid of the accomplice, drove him in his own vehicle a…
Excerpt of a 116,065-character opinion. The full text and citation network load in the interactive viewer above.