James v. Kentucky

How courts have described this case

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

• holding that Kentucky’s “distinction between [jury] admonitions and instructions [was] not the sort of firmly established and regularly followed state practice that can prevent implementation of federal constitutional rights”
• holding that a state rule requiring a jury-charge request be labeled “instruction” rather than “admonition” was inadequate because it had not been consistently applied in earlier cases
• holding that a state rule requiring a jury-charge request be labeled “instruction” rather than “admonition” was inadequate because it had not been consistently applied in earlier cases
• finding that a state procedural bar must be consistently applied and firmly established in order to be worthy of respect in federal court
• stating that for a state procedural rule to be “adequate,” it must be “firmly established and regularly followed”
• finding that omission was a plain error that affected substantial rights under the first three prongs of plain-error review

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).