# Mills v. Maryland

> Supreme Court of the United States · June 6, 1988 · 486 U.S. 367

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9431327

## Case

- **Full name:** Mills v. Maryland
- **Court:** Supreme Court of the United States
- **Decided:** June 6, 1988
- **Citations:** 486 U.S. 367; 56 U.S.L.W. 4503; 108 S. Ct. 1860; 100 L. Ed. 2d 384; 1988 U.S. LEXIS 2488
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurrence by Brennan
- **Judges:** Blackmun, Brennan, White, Marshall, Stevens, Rehnquist, O'Connor, Scalia, Kennedy
- **Cited by:** 1,015 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- **Yellow flag:** Disagreed with by Eugene Williams Gall, Jr. v. Phil Parker, Warden, 231 F.3d 265 (2000).
- Negative treatments: 1
- Distinguished by: 7
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9431327

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- holding that that jury instructions in a death penalty case that create a “substantial probability” that jurors would erroneously believe that they must unanimously agree on the existence of a mitigating circumstance before considering it in the weighing process violate the Ei…
- holding that due process is violated "[i]f there is a substantial possibility that reasonable jurors, upon receiving the judge's instructions. . . ., well might have thought they were precluded from considering any mitigating circumstances unless all 12 jurors agreed on the ex…
- recognizing that the sentencer in a capital proceeding may not be prevented from taking into consideration, as a mitigating factor, any relevant circumstance, including any facet of the accused's character or record and any of the circumstances of the offense that the accused …
- holding unconstitutional Maryland’s sentencing-phase jury instructions where the instructions created “a substantial probability that reasonable jurors ... well may have thought they were precluded from considering any mitigating evidence unless all 12 jurors agreed on the exi…
- holding that a death sentence must be vacated where there is a substantial probability that reasonable jurors could understand that they must unanimously find a mitigating factor before they can weigh it .against any aggravating factors

## Opinion text

Justice Brennan,
concurring.
I join the Court’s opinion and agree fully with its analysis as to why, under our current death penalty jurisprudence, the death sentence in this case must be vacated. I write separately only because 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 (1976), I would direct that the resentencing 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/9431327. Public record. Not legal advice.