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462 U.S. 1145

Smith v. Florida

Supreme Court of the United States · decided 1983-06-20

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

“here there was sufficient evidence from which the jury could have found appellant guilty of premeditated murder.”

quoted by 1 later decision, including Smith v. Dugger

Relies on Gregg v. Georgia · Enmund v. Florida · 424 So. 2d 726 - Florida Bar v. Merwin

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1983-06-20

How this case has been cited

Cited by 182 later decisions (2 by the Supreme Court) — most recently May 2008 · most notably Tw Electrical Service Inc Nn v. Pacific Electrical Contractors Association (1987), T.W. Electrical Service, Inc. v. Pacific Electrical Contractors Ass'n (1987)

10 federal appellate · 1 district · 117 state decisions

990198319902000decided

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.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

On petition for writ of certiorari to the Supreme Court of Florida.

The petition for writ of certiorari is denied.

Justice BRENNAN, dissenting.

Adhering to my views 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.

¶1

Adhering to my view that the death penalty is in all circumstances cruel and unusual punishment prohibited by the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments, I would grant certiorari and vacate petitioner's death sentence on this basis alone. However, even if I accepted the prevailing view that the death penalty can constitutionally be imposed under certain circumstances, I would grant certiorari and vacate the death sentence on the ground that neither the jury that convicted petitioner of murder nor the judge who sentenced him found that he "kill[ed], attempt[ed] to kill, or intend[ed] that a killing take place or that lethal force . . . be employed." Enmund v. Florida, --- U.S. ----, ----, 102 S.Ct. 3368, 3376, 73 L.Ed.2d 1140 (1982). The jury was instructed that "liability for first degree murder extends to all co-felons who are personally present during the commission of the felony" and that "[u]nder the felony murder rule, [the] state of mind of the defendant is immaterial." Tr. 2678. In imposing sentence, the trial judge did not find that petitioner himself killed, attempted to kill, or intended to kill. Although the Supreme Court of Florida concluded that "there was sufficient evidence from which the jury could have found [petitioner] guilty of premeditated murder," 424 So.2d 726, 733 (1982) (emphasis added), neither the jury nor the judge actually made such a finding. Under these circumstances our decision in Enmund v. Florida requires that petitioner's death sentence be vacated.

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