Over a written dissent by two justices, the Supreme Court declined on Monday to take up a death penalty case, one that requested the court to decide on when jury selection begins and if the defendant has the right to be present. This case is referred as Sandoval v. Texas, and the ordination was part of a list of orders from the justices’ private conference last week. No new cases were added to their docket for the 2024-25 term.
The court’s decision not to review came in the case of Gustavo Sandoval, a Texas man convicted of murder and sentenced to death for killing an off-duty border patrol officer during an attempted robbery. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals had previously ruled that Sandoval did not have a constitutional right to attend special proceedings where the judge conducted preliminary interviews of potential jurors specific to his case.
Despite his appeal to the Supreme Court, Sandoval’s request was turned down without explanation. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented from this decision, an opinion seconded by Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Jackson argued that the special procedures resembling regular “voir dire” proceedings should involve the defendant. Setting precedent, the Supreme Court acknowledged a defendant’s right to attend voir dire, leading Jackson to believe the same should apply when potential jurors assembled for his case are being interviewed for the first time.
Jackson also highlighted that this denial of attendance contradicts the decision of other state and federal courts. This is particularly significant in this case, she asserted, because it presents obvious legal and practical issues that the Supreme Court should have granted to review.
In a separate development, the Supreme Court denied review without comment in the case of another Texas inmate, Jose Gamboa, who was sentenced to death for two 2005 murders but has maintained his innocence since then.
The justices’ next private conference is scheduled for Thursday, May 16. Orders from that conference are expected on Monday, May 20, at 9:30 a.m. Information for this article was originally featured on SCOTUSblog.