# Johnson v. Mississippi

> Supreme Court of the United States · June 13, 1988 · 486 U.S. 578

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9431342

## Case

- **Full name:** Johnson v. Mississippi
- **Court:** Supreme Court of the United States
- **Decided:** June 13, 1988
- **Citations:** 486 U.S. 578; 56 U.S.L.W. 4561; 108 S. Ct. 1981; 100 L. Ed. 2d 575; 1988 U.S. LEXIS 2657
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurrence by Brennan
- **Judges:** Stevens, Rehnquist, Brennan, White, Marshall, Blackmun, Scalia, Kennedy, O'Connor
- **Cited by:** 647 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- **Yellow flag:** Disagreed with by United States v. Billie Jerome Allen, United States of America v. Norris G. Holder, 247 F.3d 741 (2001).
- Negative treatments: 1
- Distinguished by: 7
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9431342

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- concluding that a death sentence had to be reexamined where one of the aggravating circumstances was based on a prior conviction for a violent felony and the conviction had since been reversed, declining to consider whether the aggravating circumstance could be sustained based…
- observing that where a rule has not been consistently or regularly applied, it is not—under federal law—an adequate and independent state ground for affirming petitioner's conviction.
- observing that where a rule has not been consistently or regularly applied, it is not — under federal law — -an adequate and independent state ground for affirming petitioner’s conviction.
- holding that allowing a death sentence to stand that was based in part on a prior conviction that was later vacated violated the Eighth Amendment’s ban against cruel and unusual punishment
- holding that a state procedural rule in not “adequate” to bar federal habeas review unless the rule “is strictly or regularly followed” (quotations omitted)

## Opinion text

*591 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 (1976), I would direct that the resentenc-ing 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/9431342. Public record. Not legal advice.