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Supreme Court· 6/25/1980

Adams v. Texas

Citations

  • 448 U.S. 38
  • 100 S. Ct. 2521
  • 65 L. Ed. 2d 581
  • 1980 U.S. LEXIS 139

About this case

Adams v. Texas

Adams v. Texas, 448 U.S. 38 (1980), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held on an 8–1 vote that, consistent with its prior opinion in _Witherspoon v. Illinois _, a Texas requirement that jurors swear an oath that the mandatory imposition of a death sentence would not interfere with their consideration of factual matters such as guilt or innocence during a trial was unconstitutional.

The surrounding factual issues (involving defendant Randall Dale Adams ) were the subject of a partially autobiographical book of the same name, and were featured in the 1988 movie _The Thin Blue Line _.

Further reading

(https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Adams_v._Texas&action=edit&section=1 "Edit section: Further reading")

  • Gillers, Stephen (1985). "Proving the Prejudice of Death-Qualified Juries after Adams v. Texas". University of Pittsburgh Law Review. 47 (1): 219–255.

External links

(https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Adams_v._Texas&action=edit&section=2 "Edit section: External links")

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Adams_v._Texas&oldid=1351335184 "

Editorial context from Wikipedia (CC-BY-SA 4.0).

How courts have described this case

Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.

  • holding that certain veniremen had been improperly excluded because they acknowledged that their views of the death penalty might “affect” their deliberations, but only to the extent that they would view their task with greater gravity
  • reversing a death sentence because of improper questions regarding whether the imposition of the death penalty would \affect\ jurors' performance of their duty
  • reversing a death sentence because of improper questions regarding whether the imposition of the death penalty, would “affect” jurors’ performance of their duty
  • excluding all jurors affected by the prospect of the death penalty deprives defendant of right to an impartial jury
  • upholding trial court's refusal to allow defense to question a witness about his pending charges
  • explaining Witherspoon v. Illinois, 391 U.S. 510, 88 S.Ct. 1770, 20 L.Ed.2d 776 (1968)

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).

Judges: Rehnquist, White, Brennan, Stewart, Blackmun, Powell, Stevens, Burger, Marshall, Behnquist

Read full opinion on CourtListener

Cited by

1,028 cases in this archive cite this case; the 20 most cited are listed.

Cites

28 cases in this archive are cited by this case; the 20 most cited are listed.

Other cases named Adams v. Texas

11 other CourtListener records share this case name.

Sourced from CourtListener / Free Law Project (CC0).

This is legal information, not legal advice. Laws vary by jurisdiction and change frequently. Always verify current law with official sources and consult a licensed attorney in your jurisdiction for advice on your specific situation.