¶1Sup. Ct. Ala. Motion of petitioner for leave to proceed in forma pauperis granted. Certiorari granted limited to the question presented by the Court: May a sentence of death constitutionally be imposed after a jury verdict of guilt of a capital offense, when the jury was not permitted to consider a verdict of guilt of a lesser included non-capital offense, and when the evidence would have supported such a verdict?
444 U.S. 897
Beck v. Alabama
Supreme Court of the United States
Decided October 9, 1979
Supreme Court of the United States · decided 1979-10-09
Key passage — most relied on by later courts
“‘May a sentence of death constitutionally be imposed after a jury verdict of guilt of a capital offense, when the jury was not permitted to consider a verdict of guilt of a lesser included non-capital offense, and when the evidence would have supported such a verdict?’”
quoted by 2 later decisions, including Bagby v. Sowders, Bagby v. Sowders
Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know
Decided 1979-10-09
How this case has been cited
Cited by 145 later decisions (4 by the Supreme Court) — most recently August 2008 · most notably Beck v. Alabama (1980), Griggs v. Provident Consumer Discount Co. (1982)
66 federal appellate · 10 district · 9 state decisions
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
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