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Shafer v. South Carolina, 532 U.S. 36
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General SummaryThis case is from a collection containing the full text of over 16,000 Supreme Court cases from 1793 to the present. The body of Supreme Court decisions are, effectively, the final interpretation of the Constitution. Only an amendment to the Constitution can permanently overturn an interpretation and this has happened only four times in American history.
Justice Scalia, Dissenting.
While I concede that today’s judgment is a logical extension of Simmons v. South Carolina, 512 U. S. 154 (1994), I am more attached to the logic of the Constitution, whose Due Process Clause was understood as an embodiment of common-law tradition, rather than as authority for federal courts to promulgate wise national rules of criminal procedure.
As I pointed out in Simmons, that common-law tradition does not contain special jury-instruction requirements for capital cases. Today’s decision is the second page of the "whole new chapter" of our improvised " ‘death-is-different’ jurisprudence" that Simmons began. Id., at 185 (Scalia, J., dissenting). The third page (or the fourth or fifth) will be the (logical-enough) extension of this novel requirement to cases in which the jury did not inquire into the possibility of parole. Providing such information may well be a good idea (though it will sometimes harm rather than help the defendant’s case)—and many States have indeed required it. See App. B to Brief for Petitioner. The Constitution, however, does not. I would limit Simmons to its facts.
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Chicago: "Justice Scalia, Dissenting.," Shafer v. South Carolina, 532 U.S. 36 in Shafer v. South Carolina, 532 U.S. 36 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2002), 36–58. Original Sources, accessed March 15, 2025, http://www.originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=4UIEWPAV5XEVACI.
MLA: . "Justice Scalia, Dissenting." Shafer v. South Carolina, 532 U.S. 36, in Shafer v. South Carolina, 532 U.S. 36, Washington, D.C., U.S. Government Printing Office, 2002, pp. 36–58. Original Sources. 15 Mar. 2025. http://www.originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=4UIEWPAV5XEVACI.
Harvard: , 'Justice Scalia, Dissenting.' in Shafer v. South Carolina, 532 U.S. 36. cited in 2002, Shafer v. South Carolina, 532 U.S. 36, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C., pp.36–58. Original Sources, retrieved 15 March 2025, from http://www.originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=4UIEWPAV5XEVACI.
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