Lackey v. Texas

Ct. Crim. App. Tex. Certiorari denied.

Memorandum of

Justice Stevens,

respecting the denial of certiorari.

Petitioner raises the question whether executing a prisoner who has already spent some 17 years on death row violates the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. Though the importance and novelty of the question presented by this certiorari petition are sufficient to warrant review by this Court, those factors also provide a principled basis for postponing consideration of the issue until after it has been addressed by other courts. See, e. g., McCray v. New…