US SUPREME COURT DECISIONS

1. In an Illinois State Court, petitioner was charged in four separate indictments with murdering his wife and three children, all of whom were found dead in a burning building with bullet wounds in their heads. In three successive trials, petitioner was convicted of the first degree murder of his wife and two children. At each of the trials, the prosecution introduced into evidence the details of all four deaths. At the first two trials, the jury fixed the penalty at imprisonment. At the third trial, the penalty was fixed at death, and the State Supreme Court affirmed.

Held: the State was constitutionally entitled to prosecute these individual offenses singly at separate trials, and to utilize therein all relevant evidence, in the absence of proof establishing that such a course of action entailed fundamental unfairness. Hoag v. New Jersey, ante, p. 356 U. S. 464. Pp. 356 U. S. 572-573.

2. In his brief in this Court, petitioner appended a number of articles which had appeared in Chicago newspapers after the first and second trials attributing to the prosecution dissatisfaction with the prison sentences and determination to prosecute petitioner until a death sentence was obtained, but neither these articles nor their subject matter was included in the record certified to this Court from the State Supreme Court.

Held: not being part of the record, and not having been considered by the state courts, that material may not be considered here. Pp. 356 U. S. 572-573.

3. The judgment is affirmed, with leave to petitioner to institute such further proceedings as may be available to him for the purpose of substantiating the claim that he was deprived of due process. P. 356 U. S. 573.

8 Ill.2d 619, 137 N.E. 2d 40, affirmed. chanrobles.com-red

Page 356 U. S. 572