Hawkins v. Texas
454 U.S. 919
SCOTUS
1981
Check Treatment

HAWKINS v. TEXAS

No. 80-6514

Supreme Court of the United States

453 U.S. 914, 919

, in addition to creating more paperwork with no observable change in the results of a case, has at least two singularly undesirable side effects. Presumably a case where a Court of Appeals has refused to grant leave to appeal, and thus has neither examined the accuracy of petitioner‘s factual assertions nor articulated the reasons for its conclusion that petitioner‘s legal contentions lack merit, is not an ideal candidate for certiorari here entirely apart from the importance of the issues presented by such a petition. In
, this Court dismissed a writ of certiorari as improvidently granted because the petitioner had misstated the facts in his petition so as to create a purely artificial and hypothetical issue.

But an even more important consequence of the disregard of congressional provisions as to our jurisdiction is a tendency to weaken the authority of this Court when it can demonstrate in a principled manner that it has either the constitutional or statutory authority to decide a particular issue. The necessary concomitant of our tripartite system of government that the other two branches of government obey judgments rendered within our jurisdiction is sapped whenever we decline for any reason other than the exercise of our own constitutional duties to similarly follow the mandates of Congress and the Executive within their spheres of authority.

Ct. Crim. App. Tex. Motion of American Civil Liberties Union et al. for leave to file a brief as amici curiae granted. Certiorari denied.

JUSTICE BRENNAN and JUSTICE MARSHALL, dissenting.

Adhering to our views that the death penalty is in all circumstances cruel and unusual punishment prohibited by the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments,

, we would grant certiorari and vacate the death sentence in this case.