US SUPREME COURT DECISIONS

Rehearing Denied Nov. 12, 1963.

See 375 U.S. 917.

The following questions, inter alia, seem relevant and worthy of argument and Consideration:

Such statistics must of course be regarded with caution. See, e. g., Royall Commission Report on Capital Punishment (1953) 24; Hart, Murder and Its Punishment, 12 N.W.L.Rev. 433, 457 (1957); Allen, Review, 10 Stan.L. Rev. 595, 600 (1958). In Canada, for example, the death sentence was rarely imposed for rape even prior to its formal abolition in 1954. In 1961 there was a slight increase in the number of convictions for rape. See United Nations, Capital Punishment, supra, note 1, at 55.

Fred Blanton, Jr., for petitioner. Richmond M. Flowers, Atty. Gen. of Alabama, and Leslie Hall, Asst. Atty. Gen., for respondent.

Petition for writ of certiorari to the Supreme Court of Alabama.

Denied.

Mr. Justice GOLDBERG, with whom Mr. Justice DOUGLAS and Mr. Justice BRENNAN join, dissenting: I would grant certiorari in the case and in Snider v. Cunningham, to consider whether the Eighth and Fourteen Amendments to the United States Constitution permit the imposition of the death penalty on a convicted rapist who has neither taken nor endangered human life. (1) In light of the trend both in this country and throughout the world against punishing rape by death,1

Page 375 U.S. 889 , 890

does the imposition of the death penalty by those States which retain it for rape violate 'evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of [ our] maturing society,'2 or 'standards of decency more or less universally accepted?'3 [375 U.S. 889 , 891]

Full Text of Opinion