Saffle v. Parks

How courts have described this case

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

• holding that jurors need not “be allowed to base the sentencing decision upon the sympathy they feel for the defendant after hearing his mitigating evidence.”
• holding that jurors need not “be allowed to base the sentencing decision upon the sympathy they feel for the defendant after hearing his mitigating evidence.”
• holding that jurors need not “be allowed to base the sentencing decision upon the sympathy they feel for the defendant after hearing his mitigating evidence”
• stating that a constitutional rule prohibiting anti-sympathy instructions “is not dictated by our prior cases and, were it to be adopted, it would contravene well-considered precedents”
• holding is new and thus not ordinarily retroactive “unless reasonable jurists hearing petitioner’s claim at the time his conviction became final ‘would have felt compelled by existing precedent’ to rule in his favor”
• deeming a rule new where the result was not \compel[led]\ by existing precedent

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).