McGautha v. California

Me. Justice Douglas,

with whom Mr. Justice Brennan and Mr. Justice Marshall concur, dissenting in No. 204.

In my view the unitary trial which Ohio provides in first-degree murder cases does not satisfy the requirements of procedural Due Process under the Fourteenth Amendment.

Ohio makes first-degree murder punishable by death “unless the jury trying the accused recommends mercy, in which case the punishment shall be imprisonment for life.” Ohio Rev. Code Ann. § 2901.01. Petitioner *227was indicted and tried for murder in the first degree for the killing of his wife. His pleas were “not guilty” and…