# Tennard v. Dretke, Director, Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Correctional Institutions Division

> Supreme Court of the United States · June 24, 2004 · 542 U.S. 274

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9434661

## Case

- **Full name:** Tennard v. Dretke, Director, Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Correctional Institutions Division
- **Court:** Supreme Court of the United States
- **Decided:** June 24, 2004
- **Citations:** 542 U.S. 274; 17 Fla. L. Weekly Fed. S 420; 72 U.S.L.W. 4540; 124 S. Ct. 2562; 159 L. Ed. 2d 384; 2004 U.S. LEXIS 4575
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Dissent by Thomas
- **Judges:** O'Connor, Rehnquist, Scalia, Thomas
- **Cited by:** 1,948 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/9434661

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- holding that the meaning of relevance in the context of mitigating evidence introduced in a capital sentencing proceeding is no different than in any other context, and thus the general evidentiary standard of "any tendency to make the existence of any fact that is of conseque…
- explaining that evidence of "[i]mpaired intellectual functioning has mitigating dimension beyond the impact it has on the individual's ability to act deliberately," and thus, it "might serve as a basis for a sentence less than death" (internal quotations and citations omitted)
- stating that once the low threshold for relevant evidence is met, "the Eighth Amendment requires that the jury be able to consider and give effect to a capital defendant’s mitigating evidence” (internal quotation marks and citation omitted)
- holding that petitioner was entitled to a COA on his Penry claim where his evidence of low IQ and impaired intellectual functioning had "mitigating dimension beyond the impact it has on the individual's ability to act deliberately"
- stating that relevance standard applicable to mitigating evidence in capital cases is a “tendency to make the existence of any fact that is of consequence to the determination of the action more probable or less probable”

## Opinion text

Justice Thomas,
dissenting.
Petitioner must rely on Penry v. Lynaugh, 492 U. S. 302 (1989), to argue that Texas’ special issues framework unconstitutionally limited the discretion of his sentencing jury. I have long maintained, however, that Penry did “so much violence to so many of this Court’s settled precedents in an area of fundamental constitutional law, [that] it cannot command the force of stare decisis.” Graham v. Collins, 506 U. S. 461, 497 (1993) (concurring opinion). I therefore agree with Justice Scalia that a certificate of appealability can *295 not be issued based upon an “insubstantial right... derive[d] from case law in which this Court has long left the Constitution behind and embraced contradiction.” Ante, at 294 (dissenting opinion). I respectfully dissent.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9434661. Public record. Not legal advice.