# Barefoot v. Estelle

> Supreme Court of the United States · July 6, 1983 · 463 U.S. 880

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9429355

## Case

- **Full name:** Barefoot v. Estelle, Director, Texas Department of Corrections
- **Court:** Supreme Court of the United States
- **Decided:** July 6, 1983
- **Citations:** 463 U.S. 880; 51 U.S.L.W. 5189; 13 Fed. R. Serv. 449; 103 S. Ct. 3383; 77 L. Ed. 2d 1090; 1983 U.S. LEXIS 110
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurrence by Stevens
- **Judges:** White, Stevens, Marshall, Blackmun, Brennan, I-Iv
- **Cited by:** 4,443 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- **Yellow flag:** Reported overruled in part, on other grounds by Lindh v. Murphy, 521 U.S. 320 (1997) — not on the Supreme Court's list.
- Negative treatments: 2
- Distinguished by: 2
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9429355

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- explaining that because future dangerousness “is a constitutionally acceptable criterion for imposing the death penalty,” and it is “not impossible for even a lay person sensibly to arrive at that conclusion, it makes little sense, if any, to submit that psychiatrists, out of …
- stating in the context of a federal death penalty case that “[t]he procedures adopted to facilitate the orderly consideration and disposition of habeas petitions are not legal entitlements that a defendant has a right to pursue irrespective of the contribution these procedures…
- stating that, to obtain a stay of execution, a habeas petitioner needed to show both “a reasonable probability that four members of the Court would consider the underlying issue sufficiently meritorious for the grant of certiorari” and “a significant possibility of reversal of…
- holding that a certificate of probable cause should only issue where petitioner has demonstrated the issues raised are (1) debatable among jurists of reason, (2) a court could resolve the issues differently, or (3) the questions presented are deserving of further proceedings.”
- recognizing that the fact that psychiatric testimony “increased the likelihood that petitioner would be sentenced to death” did not render that “evidence inadmissible, any more than it would with respect to other relevant evidence against any defendant in a criminal case”

## Opinion text

Justice Stevens,
concurring in the judgment.
For the reasons stated in Parts I and II of Justice Marshall’s dissenting opinion, I agree that the Court of Appeals made a serious procedural error in this case. Nevertheless, since this Court has now reviewed the merits of petitioner’s appeal, and since I agree with the ultimate conclusion that the judgment of the District Court must be affirmed, I join the Court’s judgment.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9429355. Public record. Not legal advice.