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    Aubrey Dennis Adams v. Louie L. Wainwright, Secretary, Florida Department of Corrections, 474 U.S. 1073 (1986)

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    1) Justice Marshall dissented from the Supreme Court's denial of certiorari in Adams v. Wainwright, arguing that the jury instructions in Adams' trial violated the precedent set in Stromberg v. California because the jury could have convicted Adams based on either premeditated murder or felony murder involving a crime that was legally invalid. 2) At Adams' trial, the judge instructed the jury that first-degree murder could be found if the killing occurred during the commission of rape, a crime against nature, or kidnapping, but the Florida Supreme Court had previously ruled that "crime against nature" was too vague a term to support a conviction. 3) Because the sexual nature of the crime made

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    Aubrey Dennis Adams v. Louie L. Wainwright, Secretary, Florida Department of Corrections, 474 U.S. 1073 (1986)

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    1) Justice Marshall dissented from the Supreme Court's denial of certiorari in Adams v. Wainwright, arguing that the jury instructions in Adams' trial violated the precedent set in Stromberg v. California because the jury could have convicted Adams based on either premeditated murder or felony murder involving a crime that was legally invalid. 2) At Adams' trial, the judge instructed the jury that first-degree murder could be found if the killing occurred during the commission of rape, a crime against nature, or kidnapping, but the Florida Supreme Court had previously ruled that "crime against nature" was too vague a term to support a conviction. 3) Because the sexual nature of the crime made

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    Filed: 1986-01-13 Precedential Status: Precedential Citations: 474 U.S. 1073 Docket: 85-5815

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    1) Justice Marshall dissented from the Supreme Court's denial of certiorari in Adams v. Wainwright, arguing that the jury instructions in Adams' trial violated the precedent set in Stromberg v. California because the jury could have convicted Adams based on either premeditated murder or felony murder involving a crime that was legally invalid. 2) At Adams' trial, the judge instructed the jury that first-degree murder could be found if the killing occurred during the commission of rape, a crime against nature, or kidnapping, but the Florida Supreme Court had previously ruled that "crime against nature" was too vague a term to support a conviction. 3) Because the sexual nature of the crime made

    Copyright:

    Public Domain
    Download as COURT, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as court, pdf, or txt
    36 views4 pages

    Aubrey Dennis Adams v. Louie L. Wainwright, Secretary, Florida Department of Corrections, 474 U.S. 1073 (1986)

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    Scribd Government Docs
    1) Justice Marshall dissented from the Supreme Court's denial of certiorari in Adams v. Wainwright, arguing that the jury instructions in Adams' trial violated the precedent set in Stromberg v. California because the jury could have convicted Adams based on either premeditated murder or felony murder involving a crime that was legally invalid. 2) At Adams' trial, the judge instructed the jury that first-degree murder could be found if the killing occurred during the commission of rape, a crime against nature, or kidnapping, but the Florida Supreme Court had previously ruled that "crime against nature" was too vague a term to support a conviction. 3) Because the sexual nature of the crime made

    Copyright:

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    of 4

    474 U.S.

    1073
    106 S.Ct. 834
    88 L.Ed.2d 805

    Aubrey Dennis ADAMS, petitioner


    v.
    Louie L. WAINWRIGHT, Secretary, Florida Department of
    Corrections, et al.
    No. 85-5815

    Supreme Court of the United States


    January 13, 1986

    On petition for writ of certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for
    the Eleventh Circuit.
    The petition for a writ of certiorari is denied.
    Justice BRENNAN, dissenting.
    Adhering to my view that the death penalty is in all circumstances cruel
    and unusual punishment prohibited by the Eighth and Fourteenth
    Amendments, Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153, 227, 96 S.Ct. 2909, 2950,
    49 L.Ed.2d 859 (1976), I would grant certiorari and vacate the death
    sentence in this case.
    Justice MARSHALL, dissenting.

    Because the Court's refusal to grant certiorari in this case allows the State of
    Florida to proceed with the execution of a defendant whose conviction may
    well rest upon a ground that the Florida Supreme Court has held invalid, I must
    dissent from the denial here.

    Since Stromberg v. California, 283 U.S. 359, 51 S.Ct. 532, 75 L.Ed. 1117
    (1931), this Court has recognized that "a general verdict must be set aside if the
    jury was instructed that it could rely on any of two or more independent
    grounds, and one of those grounds is insufficient, because the verdict may have

    rested exclusively on the insufficient ground." Zant v. Stephens, 462 U.S. 862,
    881, 103 S.Ct. 2733, 2745, 77 L.Ed.2d 235 (1983). See Chiarella v. United
    States, 445 U.S. 222, 237, n. 21, 100 S.Ct. 1108, 1119, n. 21, 63 L.Ed.2d 348
    (1980); Leary v. United States, 395 U.S. 6, 31-32, 89 S.Ct. 1532, 1545-46, 23
    L.Ed.2d 57 (1969). Although in Stromberg, the Court was concerned that the
    jury might have held the defendant criminally liable for conduct protected by
    the First Amendment, the rationale of that decision should not be limited to
    cases in which a general verdict may be based upon a ground repugnant to the
    Federal Constitution. Where a jury has been instructed that it may convict a
    defendant upon an invalid ground, the reason for that invalidity is not
    important. See Chiarella v. United States, supra, 445 U.S., at 237, n. 21, 100
    S.Ct., at 1119, n. 21 ("We may not uphold a criminal conviction if it is
    impossible to ascertain whether the defendant has been punished for
    noncriminal conduct"). What offends the Due Process Clause is the possibility
    that the jury may have condemned the defendant for reasons that as a matter of
    lawbe it statutory or constitutionalcannot support the verdict. The
    existence of such a possibility is all too real in this case and demands that
    petitioner's conviction be set aside.
    3

    Petitioner was arrested and charged with the murder of an 8-year-old girl. In
    statements to the police, he admitted removing the victim's clothes, using rope
    to tie her hands, and placing plastic bags over her body. He said he thought he
    had tried to have sexual relations with the victim but either could not do it or
    could not bring himself to do it. 764 F.2d 1356, 1358 (CA11 1985). The
    indictment brought against petitioner alleged that he had "murdered the victim,
    unlawfully, from a premeditated design by strangling." Adams v. State, 412
    So.2d 850, 852 (Fla.1982). The circumstances of the crime might easily have
    led jurors to believe that even if petitioner had not premeditated the homicide,
    he nevertheless had killed the girl in the course of an attempted rape. Under
    state law, such a felony-murder theory was not foreclosed by the indictment,
    ibid., and it does not appear that the prosecution ever indicated its intention to
    rely solely upon a theory of premeditated murder.

    The trial court's instruction made clear the availability of either felony murder
    or premeditated murder as a basis for a first-degree murder conviction. At the
    close of trial, the court instructed the jury that it would not have to find that
    petitioner had a "premeditated design to kill" in order to convict him of firstdegree murder. The court explained:

    "The killing of a human being in committing, or in attempting to commit any


    arson, rape, robbery, burglary, abominable and detestable crime against nature
    or kidnapping is murder in the first degree, even though there is no

    premeditated design or intent to kill.


    6

    "If a person kills another while he is trying to do or commit any arson, rape,
    robbery, burglary, abominable and detestable crime against nature or
    kidnapping, or while escaping from the immediate scene of such crime the
    killing is in the perpetration of or in the attempt to perpetrate such arson, rape,
    robbery, burglary, abominable and detestable crime against nature or
    kidnapping and is murder in the first degree." Ibid.

    The jury proceeded to convict petitioner of first-degree murder. Long before


    petitioner's trial, however, the Florida Supreme Court had held the statutory
    term "crime against nature" too vague to sustain a conviction. Franklin v. State,
    257 So.2d 21 (Fla.1971). Indeed, in affirming petitioner's conviction, the
    Florida Supreme Court admitted that the instruction here "included references
    to two crimes which do not exist, to wit: rape and an abominable and detestable
    crime against nature." 412 So.2d, at 852. Were it possible, therefore, that in
    reaching their general verdict the jury relied on a felony-murder theory based
    upon the sexual aspects of the killing, the conviction unquestionably would
    have to be overturned under Stromberg.

    Finding no such possibility, the Court of Appeals affirmed the District Court's
    refusal to grant petitioner's habeas petition. The Court of Appeals concluded:

    "The trial court's reference to the capital felony of killing during the
    commission of or an attempt to commit rape, a crime against nature, or
    kidnapping as murder in the first degree appears early in the instructions as part
    of what were, in essence, statutory definitions. The actual and controlling
    charge came later in the instructions, when the trial court told the jurors that, if
    the elements of homicide were found, their next task would be to determine its
    degree. At this point, premeditated murder was the only killing stated to
    constitute murder in the first degree. Therefore, the jurors were actually
    instructed to consider only premeditated murder as murder in the first degree."
    764 F.2d, at 1362-1363.

    10

    I cannot accept the Court of Appeals' distinction between the "statutory" section
    of the trial court's instructions and the later, "controlling" part. Although the
    trial court's focus on premeditated murder came in the context of its "summary"
    of the entire charge, the jury can hardly be presumed to have forgotten the
    lengthy explanation of first-degree murder that had come before. The sexual
    overtones of the crime make it impossible to eliminate the possibility that the
    jury seized upon the references to rape and "crime against nature" and made

    them dispositive here. So long as such a possibility exists, Stromberg requires


    that petitioner's conviction be set aside.
    11

    This Court's refusal to grant certiorari in Dobbert v. Wainwright, 468 U.S.


    1231, 105 S.Ct. 34, 82 L.Ed.2d 925 (1984), a case raising a Stromberg claim
    very similar to the one here, might have been attributed to the majority's belief
    that the constitutional claim there had not been properly preserved. Id., at 12441246, 105 S.Ct., at 42-44 (MARSHALL, J., dissenting from denial of stay of
    execution and of certiorari). No such procedural bar exists here, and the Court's
    refusal to consider petitioner's claims is even less excusable. I dissent.

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