# Dobbert v. Florida

> Supreme Court of the United States · June 17, 1977 · 432 U.S. 282

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9426890

## Case

- **Full name:** Dobbert v. Florida
- **Court:** Supreme Court of the United States
- **Decided:** June 17, 1977
- **Citations:** 432 U.S. 282; 97 S. Ct. 2290; 53 L. Ed. 2d 344; 1977 U.S. LEXIS 122
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurrence by Burger
- **Judges:** BlacKMUN, Burger, Marshall, RehNQtjist, Rehnquist, Stevens, Stewart, White
- **Cited by:** 1,389 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- **Yellow flag:** Questioned by Douglas v. Wainwright, 714 F.2d 1532 (1983).
- Negative treatments: 1
- Distinguished by: 3
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9426890

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- concluding that post-crime procedural changes in death penalty sentencing — including one allowing the judge to overrule a jury’s recommendation of life imprisonment — were not ex post facto violations because they “merely altered the methods employed in determining whether th…
- holding that there was no ex post facto violation where the death penalty was invalidated after the defendant acted, because the subsequently invalidated statute’s “existence on the statute books provided fair warning as to the degree of culpability which the State ascribed to…
- holding that when law violating the Illinois single subject rule was void ab initio, it was not an "operative fact" under Dobbert.
- holding that no Ex Post Facto violation occurs where a “statute simply alter[s] the methods employed in determining whether the death penalty [i]s to be imposed” and there is “no change in the quantum of punishment attached to the crime”
- finding no ex post facto violation because the new law, which changed the role of the judge and jury in imposing the death sentence in Florida, afforded the defendant additional protections that the old law did not contain

## Opinion text

Mr. Chief Justice Burger,
concurring.
I join the opinion of the Court. A crucial factor in this case, for me, is that, as the Court’s opinion recites, when petitioner committed the crime, a Florida statute permitted the death penalty for the offense. Petitioner was at least constructively on notice that this penalty might indeed follow his actions. During the time which elapsed between the commission of the offense and the trial, the statute was *304 changed to provide different procedures for determining whether death was an appropriate punishment. But these new procedures, taken as a whole, were, if anything, more favorable to the petitioner; consequently the change cannot be read otherwise than as the Court’s opinion suggests.

---

Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9426890. Public record. Not legal advice.