Howell v. Mississippi

543 U.S. 440 (2005)

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Nature of the Case

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Facts

D was convicted and sentenced to death for killing Hugh David Pernell. Pernell was delivering newspapers from his car when the occupants of another car motioned for him to stop. When both cars had pulled over, D got out of the trailing car and approached the driver's side of Pernell's car. After a brief conversation and perhaps some kind of scuffle, D pulled out a pistol, shot Pernell through the heart, got back in the other car, and fled the scene. D argued that he was in another city at the time of the killing and that the evidence was insufficient to prove that Pernell was killed during an attempted robbery. D sought to supplement P's proposed jury instruction on capital murder with instructions on manslaughter and simple murder. The trial court refused the additional instructions. The jury found D guilty of capital murder and separately concluded that he should be sentenced to death. On appeal to the State Supreme Court, one of D's 28 claims of error was the trial court's failure 'to give the an instruction on the offense of simple murder or manslaughter.' D cited three cases from the State Supreme Court about lesser-included-offense instructions, and the only opinion whose original language he quoted was a noncapital case. In his arguments D never mentioned his rights under the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution, cite a specific case that relied on the constitutional provisions, or claim he was vindicating a federal right. The Mississippi Supreme Court affirmed without mentioning or addressing a constitutional claim. D appealed. The Supreme Court granted certiorari.