Amy Howe

Oct 11 2016

No grants from morning orders

The Supreme Court did not add any new cases to its merits docket this morning.

The most noteworthy part of this morning’s order list was a per curiam decision in Bosse v. Oklahoma, a death penalty case. Twenty-five years ago, in Payne v. Tennessee, the court ruled that the Constitution does not bar a jury in a death penalty case from considering the impact of the victim’s death on family members. Shaun Bosse asked the justices to review his case, arguing that his constitutional rights were violated when the victim’s family members testified about the crime itself and asked jurors to sentence him to death. An Oklahoma appeals court had rejected that argument, but today the justices threw out the state court’s decision and sent the case back for new proceedings.

The Oklahoma court was wrong, the justices explained, to assume that the Supreme Court’s decision in Payne overruled the court’s earlier ruling in Booth v. Maryland, in which the justices held that “the admission of a victim’s family members’ characterizations and opinions about the crime, the defendant, and the appropriate sentence violates the Eighth Amendment.” Unless and until the Supreme Court specifically overrules them, the justices emphasized, its decisions “remain binding precedent,” “regardless of whether subsequent cases have raised doubts about their continuing vitality.” Any arguments by the state about whether the admission of the family members’ testimony actually affected the jurors’ decision to sentence Bosse to death, or whether other procedures in Oklahoma law nonetheless protected Bosse’s rights, the court concluded, can be “addressed on remand to the extent the court below deems appropriate.”

Justices Clarence Thomas wrote a separate concurring opinion, which was joined by Justice Samuel Alito. Thomas stressed that, with today’s ruling, the court “says nothing about whether Booth was correctly decided or whether Payne swept away its analytical foundations,” and he added that he joined “the Court’s opinion with this understanding.”

Amy L Howe
Until September 2016, Amy served as the editor and reporter for SCOTUSblog, a blog devoted to coverage of the Supreme Court of the United States; she continues to serve as an independent contractor and reporter for SCOTUSblog. Before turning to full-time blogging, she served as counsel in over two dozen merits cases at the Supreme Court and argued two cases there. From 2004 until 2011, she co-taught Supreme Court litigation at Stanford Law School; from 2005 until 2013, she co-taught a similar class at Harvard Law School. She has also served as an adjunct professor at American University’s Washington College of Law and Vanderbilt Law School. Amy is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and holds a master’s degree in Arab Studies and a law degree from Georgetown University.
Tweets by @AHoweBlogger
Recent ScotusBlog Posts from Amy
  • Court rules for deaf student in education-law case
  • Parties disagree over court’s power to reach decision in election law case
  • Justices throw out lower-court ruling allowing state court clerk to be sued in parental notification abortion case
More from Amy Howe

Recent Posts

  • Court rules for deaf student in education-law case
  • Parties disagree over court’s power to reach decision in election law case
  • Justices throw out lower-court ruling allowing state court clerk to be sued in parental notification abortion case
  • Justices decline to halt execution of Texas man with intellectual disability claim
  • Justices take up case on federal admiralty law, seek government’s views on two pending petitions
Site built and optimized by Sound Strategies