Supreme Court of the United States

The Supreme Court of the United States appears in the account chiefly as the final tribunal sought by Dick and Perry Smith’s appellate lawyers, not as a court that heard and decided their claims on the merits. Their repeated petitions failed to secure full review, even as the broader appeals process delayed execution for years.

The Court as a Last Resort

Among prisoners pursuing litigation, the Supreme Court of the United States was known as the Big Boy: the destination of an appeal that might bring a case before the nation’s highest court. For Dick and Perry Smith, reaching that stage did not mean they had obtained a hearing. Their lawyers had to persuade the Court to grant review before its justices would consider the appeals in full. The account also places the Smith and Dick proceedings beside those of Lowell Lee Andrews, whose case had twice reached the Supreme Court of the United States. The comparison underscores that capital cases could travel repeatedly through the highest level of the judiciary without a successful challenge to the outcome.

Appeals and Claims

After Joseph P. Jenkins and Robert Bingham replaced Russell Shultz, they pursued numerous appeals in the federal courts. Their arguments included that counsel had not been appointed until after the defendants confessed and waived preliminary hearings; that their trial representation was inadequate; that evidence taken from Dick’s home had been admitted without a search warrant; and that they had been denied a change of venue despite extensive prejudicial publicity in the trial region. The lawyers carried the case to the Supreme Court of the United States three times. On each occasion, the Court refused to grant a writ of certiorari, the step that would have entitled the appellants to a full hearing. It did not comment on those refusals. The account therefore distinguishes the defendants’ repeated attempts to obtain review from any claim that the Court examined and rejected the substance of their arguments.

Consequences of Refused Review

The unsuccessful petitions formed part of a longer legal struggle that postponed three scheduled execution dates: October 25, 1962; August 8, 1963; and February 18, 1965. Those delays were consequences of the wider appellate process, not evidence that the Supreme Court of the United States had granted a hearing. In March 1965, the Kansas Supreme Court set a new execution window, between midnight and 2:00 A.M. on April 14. Governor William Avery later declined to grant clemency. The narrative presents the appeals system as capable of delaying a death sentence year after year, while offering no guarantee that the final court would take up a case. For Dick and Perry Smith, the Supreme Court of the United States remained a repeated possibility rather than an avenue that altered their convictions; its refusals left the state proceedings and their consequences in place.