Case Citator › Penry v. State

Penry v. State

Is it still good law? What later courts have actually done to this case.

Overruled in part
Court
Texas Court of Criminal Appeals
Citation
903 S.W.2d 715
Decided
Confirmed treatments
2
Flagged citations read
40 of 40
Citing cases (total)
40
Treatment dates
2001–2004
Overruled in part
A reviewed court has overruled part of this case’s holding. Penry v. State was overturned in part on its death sentence instructions and its Confrontation Clause reasoning was abrogated. The Supreme Court held that the jury instructions did not give effect to Penry's mitigating evidence.
More on how this was screened

Its later decision in Crawford v. Washington displaced Penry's reliance on hearsay reliability alone for testimonial statements. All 40 flagged citations have been read. The 2 confirmed treatments are listed below. Penry v. Johnson left the separate Fifth Amendment ruling undisturbed. Sanders v. State and Lee v. State report that Wall v. State abrogated Penry on other grounds; Wall applied Crawford's replacement of the reliability test and rejected a categorical Confrontation Clause safe harbor for excited utterances. The Crawford entry is anchored on the higher court's opinion, which does not name Penry.

Every treatment on this page is written from the citing opinion itself, with a verbatim quote, never copied from a commercial citator. A citation flagged by our screen but not shown here was read and found not to weaken this case.

40 later cases cite Penry v. State; 40 of those citations sat close to treatment language and were flagged for reading, and all of them have been read. Citations that did not sit near treatment language were not flagged and were not read one by one, so a court that weakened this case without using any of that language would not appear here.

Relying on Penry v. State?

This page shows what later courts did to it. Ask about your specific facts and see whether it still carries your argument, with citations you can check.

Treatments

Overruled in part

  • The Supreme Court rejected Penry's holding that its supplemental punishment instruction adequately allowed the jury to weigh mitigating evidence.

    Penry v. Johnson · Supreme Court of the United States · filed

    Penry v. State, 903 S.W. 2d 715, 759-760 (1995) ... The court also rejected Penry’s claim that the jury instructions given at his second sentencing hearing were constitutionally inadequate because they did not permit the jury to consider and give effect to his mitigating evidence of mental retardation and childhood abuse. ... Thus, to the extent the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals concluded that the substance of the jury instructions given *804at Penry’s second sentencing hearing satisfied our mandate in Penry I, that determination was objectively unreasonable.
    Read the full opinion on CourtListener →

Abrogated in part

  • The Supreme Court replaced the reliability test Penry used to admit testimonial hearsay with a requirement for prior cross-examination.

    Crawford v. Washington · Supreme Court of the United States · filed

    Where testimonial evidence is at issue, however, the Sixth Amendment demands what the common law required: unavailability and a prior opportunity for cross-examination.
    Read the full opinion on CourtListener →

Does this case still carry your argument?

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