# Adams v. Texas

> Supreme Court of the United States · June 25, 1980 · 448 U.S. 38

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9428032

## Case

- **Full name:** Adams v. Texas
- **Court:** Supreme Court of the United States
- **Decided:** June 25, 1980
- **Citations:** 448 U.S. 38; 100 S. Ct. 2521; 65 L. Ed. 2d 581; 1980 U.S. LEXIS 139
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurrence by Marshall
- **Judges:** Rehnquist, White, Brennan, Stewart, Blackmun, Powell, Stevens, Burger, Marshall, Behnquist
- **Cited by:** 1,274 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- **Yellow flag:** Limited by Lockhart v. McCree, 476 U.S. 162 (1986).
- Negative treatments: 1
- Distinguished by: 2
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9428032

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- holding that certain her views on capital punishment . . . is whether the juror’s veniremen had been improperly excluded because they views would prevent or substantially impair the performance acknowledged that their views of the death penalty might of his duties as a juror i…
- holding that certain veniremen had been improperly excluded because they acknowledged that their views of the death penalty might “affect” their deliberations, but only to the extent that they would view their task with greater gravity
- stating that "if prospective jurors are barred from jury service because of their views about capital punishment on any broader basis than inability to follow the law or abide by their oaths, the death sentence cannot be carried out."
- describing the Witherspoon rationale as that ”[t]he State ... [has] no valid interest in such a broad-based rule of exclusion, since '[a] man who opposes the death penalty, no less than one who favors it, can make the discretionary judgment entrusted to him ... and can thus ob…
- observing that Wither-spoon error “disentitles the State to execute a sentence of death” and reversing judgment “to the extent that it sustains the imposition of the death penalty”

## Opinion text

Mr. Justice Marshall,
concurring in the judgment.
I continue to believe that the death penalty is, under all circumstances, cruel and unusual punishment prohibited by the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. Furman v. Georgia, 408 U. S. 238, 314-374 (1972) (Marshall, J., concurring) ; Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U. S. 153, 231-241 (1976) (Marshall, J., dissenting); Godfrey v. Georgia, 446 U. S. 420, 437-440 (1980) (Marshall, J., concurring in judgment). In addition, I agree with the Court that the exclusion of veniremen in this case violated the doctriné'.of Witherspoon v. Illinois, 391 U. S. 510 (1968). I do not, however, join in the Court’s assumption that the death penalty may ever be imposed without violating the command of the Eighth Amendment that no "cruel and unusual punishments” be imposed. Cf. *52 Beck v. Alabama, 447 U. S. 625, 646 (1980) (Marshall, J., concurring in judgment). I join in the judgment of the Court.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9428032. Public record. Not legal advice.