Skipper v. South Carolina

Skipper v. South Carolina, 476 U.S. 1 (1986), is a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that the rule from Lockett v. Ohio (1978) dictated that mitigating evidence not be subject to limitations based on relevance.

Skipper v. South Carolina
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued February 24, 1986 Decided April 29, 1986
Full case name	Skipper v. South Carolina
Citations	476 U.S. 1 (more) 106 S. Ct. 1669; 90 L. Ed. 2d 1; 1986 U.S. LEXIS 145
Holding
The trial court's exclusion from the sentencing hearing of the testimony of the jailers and the visitor denied petitioner his right to place before the sentencing jury all relevant evidence in mitigation of punishment.
Court membership
Chief Justice Warren E. Burger Associate Justices William J. Brennan Jr. · Byron White Thurgood Marshall · Harry Blackmun Lewis F. Powell Jr. · William Rehnquist John P. Stevens · Sandra Day O'Connor
Case opinions
Majority	White, joined by Brennan, Marshall, Blackmun, Stevens, O'Connor
Concurrence	Powell, joined by Burger, Rehnquist
Laws applied
U.S. Const. amends. VIII, XIV

Background

Ronald DeRay Skipper was convicted of capital murder and rape in South Carolina. During the penalty phase of his bifurcated trial, as required by Gregg v. Georgia (1976), Skipper sought to introduce as mitigating evidence that he had "adjusted well" to his pre-trial incarceration. The trial court ruled the evidence irrelevant, in keeping with controlling South Carolina caselaw, excluded the evidence. Skipper was subsequently sentenced to death.

Holding

The Court held that, under Lockett, the exclusion of mitigating evidence on relevance grounds, as articulated by the South Carolina Supreme Court, violated the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments and vacated the sentence.

See also

• List of United States Supreme Court cases, volume 476

External links

• Text of Skipper v. South Carolina, 476 U.S. 1 (1986) is available from: CourtListener Justia Library of Congress Oyez (oral argument audio)