Drunkenness

In August 1982, respondent Michael Hardwick was charged with violating the Georgia statute criminalizing sodomy by committing that act with another adult male in the bedroom of respondent's home. After a preliminary hearing, the District Attorney decided not to present the matter to the grand jury unless further evidence developed. Hardwick, who identified as a practicing homosexual, then brought suit in the Federal District Court challenging the constitutionality of the statute insofar as it criminalized consensual sodomy. He asserted that the Georgia sodomy statute, as administered by the defendants, placed him in imminent danger of arrest. The District Court granted the defendants' motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim, relying on Doe v. Commonwealth's Attorney for the City of Richmond, which the Supreme Court had summarily affirmed. A divided panel of the Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit reversed. The appellate court held that the Georgia statute violated respondent's fundamental rights because his homosexual activity is a private and intimate association beyond the reach of state regulation by reason of the Ninth Amendment and the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. It remanded for trial. John and Mary Doe were also plaintiffs in the action. They alleged that they wished to engage in sexual activity proscribed by the statute in the privacy of their home and that they had been chilled and deterred from engaging in such activity by both the existence of the statute and Hardwick's arrest. The District Court held that because they had neither sustained, nor were in immediate danger of sustaining, any direct injury from the enforcement of the statute, they did not have proper standing to maintain the action. The Court of Appeals affirmed that dismissal. The Georgia statute at issue, Ga. Code Ann. § 16-6-2, provides that a person commits the offense of sodomy when he performs or submits to any sexual act involving the sex organs of one person and the mouth or anus of another. A person convicted shall be punished by imprisonment for not less than one nor more than twenty years. Because other Courts of Appeals had arrived at judgments contrary to that of the Eleventh Circuit, the Supreme Court granted the Attorney General's petition for certiorari questioning the holding that the sodomy statute violates the fundamental rights of homosexuals.

In a rural area of Michigan one evening shortly after midnight, Deputies Howell and Lewis observed a car traveling erratically and at excessive speed. The officers observed the car turning down a side road, where it swerved off into a shallow ditch. The officers stopped to investigate. Long, the only occupant of the automobile, met the deputies at the rear of the car, which was protruding from the ditch onto the road. The door on the driver's side of the vehicle was left open. Deputy Howell requested Long to produce his operator's license, but he did not respond. After the request was repeated, Long produced his license. Long again failed to respond when Howell requested him to produce the vehicle registration. After another repeated request, Long, who Howell thought appeared to be under the influence of something, turned from the officers and began walking toward the open door of the vehicle. The officers followed Long and both observed a large hunting knife on the floorboard of the driver's side of the car. The officers then stopped Long's progress and subjected him to a Terry protective patdown, which revealed no weapons. Long and Deputy Lewis then stood by the rear of the vehicle while Deputy Howell shined his flashlight into the interior of the vehicle, but did not actually enter it. The purpose of Howell's action was to search for other weapons. The officer noticed that something was protruding from under the armrest on the front seat. He knelt in the vehicle and lifted the armrest. He saw an open pouch on the front seat, and upon flashing his light on the pouch, determined that it contained what appeared to be marihuana. After Deputy Howell showed the pouch and its contents to Deputy Lewis, Long was arrested for possession of marihuana. A further search of the interior of the vehicle, including the glovebox, revealed neither more contraband nor the vehicle registration. The officers decided to impound the vehicle. Deputy Howell opened the trunk, which did not have a lock, and discovered inside it approximately 75 pounds of marihuana. The Barry County Circuit Court denied Long's motion to suppress the marihuana taken from both the interior of the car and its trunk. He was subsequently convicted of possession of marihuana. The Michigan Court of Appeals affirmed Long's conviction, holding that the search of the passenger compartment was valid as a protective search under Terry. The Michigan Supreme Court reversed. The court held that the sole justification of the Terry search, protection of the police officers and others nearby, cannot justify the search in this case. The marihuana found in Long's trunk was considered by the court below to be the fruit of the illegal search of the interior, and was also suppressed. The Supreme Court granted certiorari to consider the authority of a police officer to protect himself by conducting a Terry-type search of the passenger compartment of a motor vehicle during the lawful investigatory stop of the occupant of the vehicle.

Ronald Harmelin was convicted in Michigan state court of possessing 672 grams of cocaine. Michigan law imposed a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment without possibility of parole for that quantity of the drug. Harmelin had no prior felony convictions. The Michigan Court of Appeals initially reversed the conviction because evidence supporting it had been obtained in violation of the Michigan Constitution. On petition for rehearing, the Court of Appeals vacated its prior decision and affirmed the sentence. The Michigan Supreme Court denied leave to appeal. The United States Supreme Court granted certiorari. The quantity of cocaine at issue had a potential yield of between 32,500 and 65,000 doses. The sentencing court imposed the mandatory term without considering any individualized circumstances of the offense or the offender. Harmelin challenged the sentence on Eighth Amendment grounds, arguing both that it was grossly disproportionate to the crime and that the mandatory nature of the penalty was unconstitutional.

On July 29, 1972, the body of Mary Houston Cole was discovered in a secluded church parking lot in Chesterfield County, Virginia. She had been shot twice at close range with a .38-caliber pistol. The victim had last been seen alive the previous evening in the company of petitioner Hugh Jackson, who was carrying a .38-caliber pistol. Jackson had befriended Cole while he was imprisoned on a disorderly conduct charge at the local county jail. After his release she arranged for him to live in the home of her son and daughter-in-law. On the day of the killing Jackson had been drinking and had spent considerable time shooting at targets with his revolver. Late in the afternoon he unsuccessfully attempted to persuade Cole to drive him to North Carolina. She instead drove him to a local diner where both were observed by several police officers. A deputy sheriff later observed Jackson and Cole preparing to leave the diner in her car. Jackson was in possession of his revolver and a kitchen knife was visible in the vehicle. Cole's body was found the following day and a half later, naked from the waist down with her slacks beneath her body. Six cartridge cases fired from Jackson's gun were recovered nearby. Jackson drove the victim's car to North Carolina, made a short trip to Florida, and was arrested several days later. In a post-arrest statement introduced at trial, Jackson admitted shooting Cole but claimed the shooting occurred accidentally during a struggle. He said the victim had attacked him with a knife when he resisted her sexual advances. He stated he had first fired warning shots into the ground and reloaded before the fatal shots. At trial he asserted self-defense or, alternatively, that intoxication had prevented him from forming the specific intent required for first-degree murder under Virginia law. The trial judge, sitting as factfinder, convicted Jackson of first-degree murder and sentenced him to thirty years in prison. Jackson's motion to set aside the judgment was denied. The Virginia Supreme Court denied his petition for a writ of error alleging insufficient evidence. Jackson then filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. The District Court applied the Thompson v. Louisville no-evidence standard and granted relief after finding insufficient proof of premeditation. The Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit reversed that judgment.