Davis v. Ayala facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Davis v. Ayala |
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| Argued March 3, 2015 Decided June 18, 2015 |
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| Full case name | Ron Davis, Acting Warden, Petitioner v. Hector Ayala |
| Docket nos. | 13–1428 |
| Citations | 576 U.S. 257 (more)
135 S. Ct. 2187; 192 L. Ed. 2d 323
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| Prior history | Ayala v. Wong, 756 F.3d 656 (9th Cir. 2013); cert. granted, 135 S. Ct. 401 (2014). |
| Subsequent history | Rehearing denied, 136 S. Ct. 14 (2015); on remand, Ayala v. Davis, 813 F.3d 880 (9th Cir. 2016); Ayala v. Chappell, 829 F.3d 1081 (9th Cir. 2016); cert. denied, 138 S. Ct. 244 (2017). |
| Argument | Oral argument |
| Holding | |
| Although the defendant's attorney was excluded from a Batson hearing, any error that may have occurred was harmless because the defendant did not suffer actual prejudice | |
| Court membership | |
| Case opinions | |
| Majority | Alito, joined by Roberts, Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas |
| Concurrence | Kennedy |
| Concurrence | Thomas |
| Dissent | Sotomayor, joined by Ginsburg, Breyer, Kagan |
| Laws applied | |
| Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d) | |
Davis v. Ayala, 576 U.S. 257 (2015), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States upheld a death sentence of a Hispanic defendant despite the fact that all Blacks and Hispanics were rejected from the jury during the defendant's trial. The case involved a habeas corpus petition submitted by Hector Ayala, who was arrested and tried in the late 1980s for the alleged murder of three individuals during an attempted robbery of an automobile body shop in San Diego, California in April 1985. At trial, the prosecution used peremptory challenges to strike all Black and Hispanic jurors who were available for jury service. Ayala was ultimately sentenced to death, but he filed several appeals challenging the constitutionality of the trial court's decision to exclude his counsel from the hearings.
Commentators have described the case as "important" and note that will likely have a "significant effect" on similar cases in the future. However, some analysts have described the outcome as "particularly unjust".
