Uttecht v. Brown

Uttecht v. Brown
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued April 17, 2007 Decided June 4, 2007
Full case name	Jeffrey Uttecht, Superintendent, Washington State Penitentiary, Petitioner v. Cal Coburn Brown
Docket no.	06-413
Citations	551 U.S. 1 (more) 127 S. Ct. 2218; 167 L. Ed. 2d 1014; 2007 U.S. LEXIS 6965; 75 U.S.L.W. 4373; 20 Fla. L. Weekly Fed. S 307
Argument	Oral argument
Case history
Prior	Defendant convicted and sentenced to death; affirmed, State v. Brown, 132 Wash. 2d 529, 940 P.2d 546 (1997); petition for habeas corpus denied, Brown v. Lambert, No. 01-cv-715C, 2004 WL 5331923 (W.D. Wash. Sept. 15, 2004); reversed, 451 F.3d 946 (9th Cir. 2006); cert. granted, 549 U.S. 1162 (2007).
Holding
The Washington state judge who presided over the trial of Brown properly used his discretion to excuse a potential juror who expressed equivocal views about the death penalty. 451 F.3d 946, reversed and remanded.
Court membership
Chief Justice John Roberts Associate Justices John P. Stevens · Antonin Scalia Anthony Kennedy · David Souter Clarence Thomas · Ruth Bader Ginsburg Stephen Breyer · Samuel Alito
Case opinions
Majority	Kennedy, joined by Roberts, Scalia, Thomas, Alito
Dissent	Stevens, joined by Souter, Ginsburg, Breyer
Dissent	Breyer, joined by Souter

Uttecht v. Brown, 551 U.S. 1 (2007), was a case dealing with jury selection in capital cases in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that appeals courts must defer to a trial judge's decision on whether a potential juror would be able to overcome demur about capital punishment and be open to voting to impose a death sentence.