Supreme Court: Kentucky Death Sentence May Be Flawed, But Not ​‘Unreasonable’

On April 23 the U.S. Supreme Court rein­stat­ed the death sen­tence of Kentucky inmate Robert Woodall, revers­ing an ear­li­er rul­ing by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. At Woodall’s tri­al, his attor­ney asked the judge to instruct the jury not to draw any neg­a­tive infer­ence from the fact that Woodall had not tes­ti­fied in the sen­tenc­ing phase. The judge refused to give the instruc­tion. The 6^th Circuit held that the fail­ure to instruct the jury was a vio­la­tion of Woodall’s right to remain silent. Justice Antonin Scalia, writ­ing for the Court in White v. Woodall, did not say the Kentucky judge act­ed prop­er­ly, but only that fed­er­al courts must give excep­tion­al def­er­ence to state courts, only over­turn­ing them when they act ​“unrea­son­ably.” In a dis­sent joined by two oth­er Justices, Justice Stephen Breyer wrote that ​“The ​‘nor­mal rule’ is that Fifth Amendment pro­tec­tions (about the right to remain silent) apply dur­ing tri­al and sentencing.”

(S. Hanahel, ​“Court Won’t Overturn Death Sentence for Ky. Man,” Associated Press, April 23, 2014; White v. Woodall, No. 12 – 794, U.S. (April 23, 2014)). See U.S. Supreme Court and Arbitrariness.