Kennedy v. Louisiana

Kennedy v. Louisiana
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued April 16, 2008 Decided June 25, 2008
Full case name	Patrick O. Kennedy v. State of Louisiana
Docket no.	07-343
Citations	554 U.S. 407 (more) 128 S. Ct. 2641; 171 L. Ed. 2d 525; 2008 U.S. LEXIS 5262; 2008 WL 2511282; 08 Cal. Daily Op. Serv. 7920; 76 U.S.L.W. 4584; 2008 Daily Journal D.A.R. 9470; 21 Fla. L. Weekly Fed. S 472
Argument	Oral argument
Case history
Prior	Defendant convicted, sentenced, La. Dist. Ct., Aug. 26, 2003; aff'd, State v. Kennedy, 957 So.2d 757 (La. 2007); cert. granted, 552 U.S. 1087 (2008).
Procedural	Writ of Certiorari to the Louisiana Supreme Court
Subsequent	Supplemental briefing ordered, 554 U.S. 943 (2008). Opinion modified; Petition for Rehearing denied, 554 U.S. 945 (2008)
Holding
It is unconstitutional to impose the death penalty for a crime where the victim did not die and the victim's death was not intended. Louisiana Supreme Court reversed and remanded to lower court for resentencing.
Court membership
Chief Justice John Roberts Associate Justices John P. Stevens · Antonin Scalia Anthony Kennedy · David Souter Clarence Thomas · Ruth Bader Ginsburg Stephen Breyer · Samuel Alito
Case opinions
Majority	Kennedy, joined by Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg, Breyer
Dissent	Alito, joined by Roberts, Scalia, Thomas
Laws applied
U.S. Const. amends. VIII, XIV; La. Stat. Ann. §14:42

Kennedy v. Louisiana, 554 U.S. 407 (2008), is a landmark decision by the Supreme Court of the United States which held that the Eighth Amendment's Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause prohibits the imposition of the death penalty for a crime in which the victim did not die and the victim's death was not intended.