Court Opinion

ID: 9429173
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:25:53.023037+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:17.617314
License: Public Domain

*235Justice Marshall,
dissenting.
It has long been recognized that this Court’s power to dissolve a stay “should be exercised with the greatest of caution and should be reserved for exceptional circumstances.” Holtzman v. Schlesinger, 414 U. S. 1304, 1308 (1973) (Marshall, J., in chambers). Exercise of this power is proper only where the record demonstrates that the grant of a stay was clearly an abuse of discretion. Brown v. Chote, 411 U. S. 452, 457 (1973).
On the basis of the papers before us, lam frankly at a loss to comprehend how the majority can conclude, in the brief time we have had to consider the matter, that the District Court abused its discretion in granting the stay and that the Court of Appeals erred in declining to vacate the stay. In his petition for a writ of habeas corpus, Evans claimed that the Alabama Supreme Court has never determined whether his sentence is proportional to his crime in light of the sentences received by other defendants in Alabama, and that the sentencing judge gave an unconstitutionally broad construction to one of the aggravating circumstances on which the sentence was based. Although the first claim was previously considered by a Federal District Court, the relevant law has changed since that earlier decision, see Harris v. Pulley, 692 F. 2d 1189 (CA9 1982), cert. granted, 460 U. S. 1036 (1983), and the decisions of this Court firmly establish that a state prisoner may relitigate a constitutional claim “upon showing an intervening change in the law.” Sanders v. United States, 373 U. S. 1, 17 (1963). The second claim has never been considered by any federal court and finds support in the decision of the Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit in Proffitt v. Wainwright, 685 F. 2d 1227, 1265-1266 (1982).
The District Court concluded that “the time available” did not “permit [the] meaningful review or study” that would be necessary to decide Evans’ claims on the merits. Evans v. *236Smith, Civ. Action No. 83-0391-H (SD Ala., Apr. 21, 1983). Under these circumstances, it was completely proper for the court to grant a stay of execution to afford an opportunity to decide whether Evans’ death sentence is indeed unconstitutional.* As Justice Harlan once stated, when a prisoner under a sentence of death presents a constitutional claim, a court should grant a stay even if it has “grave doubt... as to whether [the prisoner] . . . presents any substantial federal question.” Edwards v. New York, 76 S. Ct. 538, 100 L. Ed. 1523 (1956) (in chambers).
This Court’s action today is particularly indefensible in view of the fact that Evans has never had an opportunity to respond to the supplementary papers that the State has filed in support of its application to vacate the stay. The State has done nothing to serve those papers, which were filed today, other than placing a copy in the mail. The papers obviously will not be received by Evans’ counsel until after it is too late.
“It is . . . important that before we allow human lives to be snuffed out we be sure — emphatically sure — that we act *237within the law.” Rosenberg v. United States, 346 U. S. 273, 321 (1953) (Douglas, J., dissenting). The execution of Evans prior to a decision of his claims on the merits will ensure that such certainty is never achieved.
I dissent. The world will not come to an end if the execution is stayed at least until Monday, to permit the District Court to hold a hearing.

The issue before us is not affected by the fact that on April 21, 1983, Justice Powell, acting as Circuit Justice, denied an application for a stay of execution pending filing of a petition for certiorari to the Supreme Court of Alabama. Post, p. 1301. The standard governing an application for a stay pending the filing of a petition for certiorari is entirely different from the standard governing an application to vacate a stay granted by a lower court. A stay pending the filing of a petition for certiorari will be granted only where there is “ ‘a reasonable probability that four Members of the Court would find that [the] case merits review.’ ” Post, at 1302. In denying the application for a stay, Justice Powell concluded that there was no such probability.
That determination has no bearing on the merits of the claims that respondent has presented to the District Court. Since the denial of certio-rari “imports no expression of opinion upon the merits of a case,” House v. Mayo, 324 U. S. 42, 48 (1945), certainly a conclusion by a Circuit Justice that the Court would deny certiorari likewise is not an expression of opinion upon the merits.