# Maynard v. Cartwright

> Supreme Court of the United States · June 6, 1988 · 486 U.S. 356

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9431325

## Case

- **Full name:** MAYNARD, WARDEN, Et Al. v. CARTWRIGHT
- **Court:** Supreme Court of the United States
- **Decided:** June 6, 1988
- **Citations:** 486 U.S. 356; 56 U.S.L.W. 4501; 108 S. Ct. 1853; 100 L. Ed. 2d 372; 1988 U.S. LEXIS 2486
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurrence by Brennan
- **Judges:** White, Brennan, Marshall
- **Cited by:** 1,092 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/9431325

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- holding that aggravating circumstance of “especially heinous” murder did not perform the constitutionally required narrowing function because an ordinary person could believe that it described every unjustified, intentional murder and no limiting construction was provided by t…
- stating, without more guidance defining terms in aggravating circumstance, “an ordinary person could honestly believe that every unjustified, intentional taking of human life is ‘especially heinous’”
- holding that a jury instruction directing the jury to find that the murder must involve “some kind of torture or serious physical abuse” would be sufficient to cure any vagueness problem

## Opinion text

Justice Brennan,
with whom Justice Marshall joins, concurring.
I join the Court’s opinion except insofar as the judgment, which is without prejudice to further sentencing proceedings, does not expressly preclude the reimposition of the death penalty. Adhering to my view that the death penalty is in all circumstances cruel and unusual punishment prohibited by the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments, Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U. S. 153, 227, 231 (1976), I would direct that the re-sentencing proceedings be circumscribed such that the State may not reimpose the death sentence.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9431325. Public record. Not legal advice.