UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT DECISIONS ON-LINE

An application to stay applicant's execution under a sentence imposed by the courts of Texas is granted pending the final disposition by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit of applicant's appeal from the District Court's denial of a writ of habeas corpus, or until a further order by this Court or by the Circuit Justice. One of the grounds on which applicant sought relief, not raised in his earlier habeas corpus petition, was the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals' failure to determine whether his death sentence is disproportionate to the punishment imposed on others. The issue of whether the Federal Court of Appeals properly concluded that the Texas death penalty system, as a whole, satisfies any constitutional requirement with respect to proportionality cannot be said to lack substance, since this Court has granted certiorari in another case to review a holding of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit that a California death sentence cannot be carried out until the State Supreme Court conducts a comparative proportionality review.