opinion: AIKENS v. CALIFORNIA
  No. 68-5027.
  Argued January 17, 1972
  Decided June 7, 1972
  Anthony G. Amsterdam argued the cause for petitioner. With him on the brief were Jerome B. Falk, Jr., Paul N. Halvonik, Michael Meltsner, Jack Greenberg, James M. Nabrit III, Charles Stephen Ralston, Jack Himmelstein, and Elizabeth B. Dubois.
  Ronald M. George, Deputy Attorney General of California, argued the cause for respondent. With him on the brief were Evelle J. Younger, Attorney General, and William E. James, Assistant Attorney General.
  Briefs of amici curiae were filed by John E. Havelock, Attorney General, for the State of Alaska; by Willard J. Lassers and Elmer Gertz for the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States et al.; by Leo Pfeffer for the Synagogue Council of America and its Constituents et al.; by Paul Raymond Stone for the West Virginia Council of Churches et al.; by Donald M. Wessling for the Committee of Psychiatrists for Evaluation of the Death Penalty; by Gerald H. Gottlieb, Melvin L. Wulf, and Sanford Jay Rosen for the American Civil Liberties Union; by Chauncey Eskridge, Mario G. Obledo, Leroy D. Clark, Nathaniel R. Jones, and Vernon Jordan for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People et al.; by Marshall J. Hartman for the National Legal Aid and Defender Association; by Michael V. DiSalle for Edmund G. Brown et al.; by Hilbert P. Zarky for James V. Bennett et al.; and by Luke McKissack, pro se.
  Per Curiam.
  Petitioner in this case, which has been orally argued and is now sub judice, has filed a Suggestion of Mootness and Motion for Remand based on the intervening decision of the California Supreme Court in People v. Anderson, 6 Cal. 3d 628, 493 P. 2d 880 (1972). That decision declared capital punishment in California unconstitutional under Art. 1, § 6, of the state constitution. The decision rested on an adequate state ground and the State’s petition for writ of certiorari was denied. 406 U. S. 958. The California Supreme Court declared in the Anderson case that its decision was fully retroactive and stated that any prisoner currently under sentence of death could petition a superior court to modify its judgment. Petitioner thus no longer faces a realistic threat of execution, and the issue on which certiorari was granted — the constitutionality of the death penalty under the Federal Constitution — is now moot in his case. Accordingly the writ of certiorari is dismissed.
instruction: What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the ideological "direction" of the decision ("liberal", "conservative", or "unspecifiable"). Use "unspecifiable" if the issue does not lend itself to a liberal or conservative description (e.g., a boundary dispute between two states, real property, wills and estates), or because no convention exists as to which is the liberal side and which is the conservative side (e.g., the legislative veto). Specification of the ideological direction comports with conventional usage. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. In interstate relations and private law issues, consider unspecifiable in all cases.