Court Opinion

ID: 9429395
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:26:38.509275+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:19.332194
License: Public Domain

Justice Blackmun,
dissenting.
I would not vacate the stay granted by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit until this Court decides Pulley v. Harris, No. 82-1095, argued today. I share Justice Brennan’s view that the resolution of the proportionality issue presented in Pulley inevitably will have some bearing on the proportionality issue raised by Robert Wayne Williams. To be sure, the decision forthcoming in Pulley v. Harris may or may not be favorable to Williams. However that may be, by vacating the stay, the Court today summarily decides the issue against Williams and, to that extent, pre-empts Pulley.
*66It seems to me that standards of orderly procedure require that the stay of execution granted by the Fifth Circuit remain in effect until Pulley is decided. I therefore dissent from what appears to be an untoward rush to judgment in a capital ease.