# Spencer v. Texas

> Supreme Court of the United States · November 21, 1966 · 385 U.S. 554

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9423327

## Case

- **Full name:** Spencer v. Texas
- **Court:** Supreme Court of the United States
- **Decided:** November 21, 1966
- **Citations:** 385 U.S. 554; 87 S. Ct. 648; 17 L. Ed. 2d 606; 1967 U.S. LEXIS 2453
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Dissent by Brennan
- **Judges:** Stewart, Warren, Brennan, Harlan, Fortas, Douglas
- **Cited by:** 1,191 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9423327

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- holding that admission of the defendant’s criminal history under a state recidivist statute does not run afoul of the Fourteenth Amendment because “the evidence is ... almost always of a purely documentary kind, and in [the case at hand] there is no claim that its presentation…
- holding that the admission of improper propensity evidence violates due process if there is a reasonable probability that the evidence affected the verdict
- holding that evidence of a defendant’s prior criminal convictions could be introduced for the purpose of sentence enhancement if the jury was instructed that the evidence could not be used for the purposes of determining guilt
- holding that evidence of the defendant’s prior criminal convictions could be introduced for the purpose of sentence enhancement, so long as the jury was instructed it could not be used for purposes of determining guilt

## Opinion text

Mr. Justice Brennan,
with whom Mr. Justice Douglas joins,
dissenting.
I join the opinion of The Chief Justice insofar as that opinion would reverse in Nos. 68 and 69. I would, *588 however, also reverse in No. 70. It seems to me that the constitutional error here involved undermined “the very integrity of the fact-finding process,” Linkletter v. Walker, 381 U. S. 618, 639 , and I would therefore apply the rule retroactively. Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U. S. 335 ; Douglas v. California, 372 U. S. 353 ; Griffin v. Illinois, 351 U. S. 12 ; Jackson v. Denno, 378 U. S. 368 .

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9423327. Public record. Not legal advice.