The United States Supreme Court has reversed and remanded a death penalty conviction in the case of ABDUL-KABIR fka COLE v. QUARTERMAN, DIRECTOR, TEXAS DEPARTMENT OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE, CORRECTIONAL INSTITUTIONS DIVISION, Case Number No. 05–11284.
Held: Because there is a reasonable likelihood that the state trial court’s instructions prevented jurors from giving meaningful consideration to constitutionally relevant mitigating evidence, the CCA’s merits adjudication “resulted in a decision that was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by [this] Court,” 28 U. S. C. §2254(d)(1), and thereby warranted federal habeas relief. Pp. 10–30.The judge's capital punishment instructions limited the jury's consideration to two questions: whether the defendant’s conduct was committed deliberately and with the reasonable expectation it would result in his victim’s death and whether it was probable he would commit future violent acts constituting a continuing threat to society. Justice Stephens writing for the 5/4 majority noted that the Court had
long recognized that sentencing juries must be able to give meaningful consideration and effect to all mitigating evidence that might provide a basis for refusing to impose the death penalty on a particular individual, notwithstanding the severity of his crime or his potential to commit similar offenses in the future. . . . Because this would not satisfy Penry I’s requirement that the evidence be permitted its mitigating force beyond the special issues’ scope, it would have followed that those issues failed to provide the jury with a vehicle for expressing its “reasoned moral response” to (the defendant’s) mitigating evidence.The instructions were simply too limiting.
Stevens, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Kennedy, Souter, Ginsburg, and Breyer, JJ., joined. Roberts, C. J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Scalia, Thomas, and Alito, JJ., joined. Scalia, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Thomas, J., joined, and in which Alito, J., joined as to Part I.The court also reversed and remanded the death penalty conviction in the case of SMITH v. TEXAS, No. 05–11304 on similar but slightly different grounds. In that case
Kennedy, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg, and Breyer, JJ., joined. Souter, J., filed a concurring opinion. Alito, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Roberts, C. J., and Scalia and Thomas, JJ., joined.
