Valliere v. Superintendent of Massachusetts Correctional Institutions

The petitioner appeals from a single justice’s denial of his petition for habeas corpus relief. In 1972, a jury convicted the petitioner of two indictments charging murder in the first degree, along with two indictments charging armed robbery. Under the procedure then in place in this Commonwealth, the jury declined to recommend a sentence of life imprisonment for the petitioner, and he was therefore sentenced to death. While his appeal was pending in this court, the United States Supreme Court decided Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238 (1972), invalidating the type of procedure under which the…