It is not easy to reconcile the Court's holding today with the principles announced and applied in Ham v. South Carolina, Ristaino v. Ross, and Rosales-Lopez v. United States. U.S. 182, 188 In such a proceeding, “the jury is called upon to make a.

   

Yet petitioner is forced to accept a conviction by what may have been a biased jury. There is nothing in the record of this trial that reflects racial overtones of any kind. 9 First, the State must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant's conduct was "`outrageously or wantonly vile, horrible or inhuman.'" 471 ). Petitioner, a black man, was indicted in Virginia on charges of capital murder for fatally shooting the white proprietor of a jewelry store in the course of a robbery. . [476 capital jury exercises discretion at the sentencing phase. at 18, 19. . The Virginia Supreme Court rejected this argument.

Brief Fact Summary. See Godfrey v. Georgia, 446 U. S. 420 (1980).   Id., at 597. and are faced with the question of what factors and circumstances will elevate this presumptive "reasonable possibility" of prejudice into a constitutionally significant "likelihood" of prejudice. What I cannot accept is that the judge is released from this obligation to insure an impartial jury -- or, to put it another way, that the defendant is stripped of this constitutional safeguard -- when a capital jury is hearing evidence concerning a crime involving interracial violence but passing "only" on the issue of guilt/innocence, rather than on the appropriate sentence. Petitioner requested and was granted a change of venue to Northampton County, Virginia, a rural county some 80 miles from the location of the murder. As the 10th question on his list, counsel requested the following: The trial judge declined to ask the proposed question, but he did ask general questions designed to uncover bias. ] The Supreme Court of Virginia properly has given the "vileness" clause a limiting construction to ensure that the jury's discretion in recommending capital punishment is channeled by appropriate standards. 11 U.S. 28, 32] [Footnote 2/4] Because the local media gave the murder extensive publicity, petitioner requested and was granted a change of venue from Southampton County to Northampton County, across the Chesapeake Bay, some 80 miles away from the location of the murder. The defendant was well known in the community where the case was tried for his civil rights activities, and the theory of his defense was that the police had framed him in retaliation for those activities. In Ristaino, supra, we specified the factors which mandated an inquiry into racial prejudice in Ham: "Ham's defense was that he had been framed because of his civil rights activities. To the suggestion that it is a special circumstance that black murderers whose victims are white are executed with disproportionate frequency, the court responded by quoting our opinion in Rosales-Lopez v. United States, 451 U. S. 182 (1981), for the proposition that "'[t]here is no constitutional presumption of juror bias for or against members of any particular racial or ethnic groups.'" [   The Court identifies three factors, the "conjunction" of which in its view entitled petitioner Turner as a matter of constitutional right to have the jury questioned on racial bias. But the exact same jury convicted Turner. [Footnote 2] App. 283 JUSTICE WHITE announced the judgment of the Court and delivered the opinion of the Court with respect to Parts I and III, and an opinion with respect to Parts II and IV, in which JUSTICE BLACKMUN, JUSTICE STEVENS, and JUSTICE O'CONNOR join. Both must reach conclusions as to impartiality and credibility by relying on their own evaluations of demeanor evidence and of responses to questions. Nothing in this record suggests that racial bias played any role in the jurors' deliberations. Ibid. Ibid. This Court did not identify in Ristaino v. Ross, Ristaino v. Ross, 424 U.S. at 424 U. S. 697.

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The defendant was well known in the community where the case was tried for his civil rights activities, and the theory of his defense was that the police had framed him in retaliation for those activities. The Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit affirmed.

Moreover, we are unpersuaded by JUSTICE BRENNAN's view that "the opportunity for racial bias to taint the jury process is . . As best I can understand it, the thesis is that, since there is greater discretion entrusted to a capital jury in the sentencing phase than in the guilt phase, "there is [in the sentencing hearing] a unique opportunity for racial prejudice to operate, but remain undetected."
On July 12, 1978, petitioner committed the murder underlying this petition. 472 equally a factor at the guilt [and sentencing] phase[s] of a bifurcated capital trial."

likelihood of racial or ethnic prejudice affecting the jurors in a particular case does the trial court's denial of a defendant's request to examine the jurors' ability to deal impartially with this subject amount to an unconstitutional abuse of discretion."

I would reverse the conviction as well as the sentence in this case to insure compliance with the constitutional guarantee of an impartial jury. Our judgment in this case is that there was an unacceptable risk of racial prejudice infecting the capital sentencing proceeding. "The Court, as well as the separate opinions of a majority of the individual Justices, has recognized that the qualitative difference of death from all other punishments requires a correspondingly greater degree of scrutiny of the capital sentencing determination." Such a juror might also be less favorably inclined toward petitioner's evidence of mental disturbance as a mitigating circumstance. Under such circumstances, therefore, due process requires "a voir dire that include[s] questioning specifically directed to racial prejudice."

U.S. 28, 54].

The mere fact that the sentencing decision, after Ristaino v. Ross, supra, at 424 U. S. 596. As Ristaino demonstrates, there is no per se constitutional rule in such circumstances requiring inquiry as to racial prejudice. (1976). The court held that "[t]he mere fact that a defendant is black and that a victim is white does not constitutionally mandate .

1985).
Does the Court really mean to suggest that the constitutional entitlement to an impartial jury attaches only at the sentencing phase? 438 Ristaino v. Ross, 424 U.S. at 424 U. S. 595. U.S. 524