MOORE v. DUCKWORTH, WARDEN
No. 78-5795.
Decided July 2, 1979
Per Curiam.
Upon a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity, the petitioner was found guilty by an Indiana jury of murder in the second degree. The Indiana Supreme Court upon direct appeal affirmed the conviction. Moore v. State, 260 Ind. 154, 293 N. E. 2d 28 (1973). The petitioner then sought a writ of habeas corpus in a Federal District Court pursuant to 28 U. S. C. § 2254. He claimed, inter alia, that he had been denied due process of law because he had been convicted upon evidence allegedly insufficient to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he was sane at the time the victim was killed. The District Court denied the writ, and the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit affirmed. 581 F. 2d 639 (1978).
In holding that the District Court had been correct in rejecting the petitioner’s challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence supporting his conviction, the Court of Appeals stated that such a challenge presents a federal due process issue “only where a state court conviction is totally devoid of evi-dentiary support.” Id., at 642. The petitioner claims that this was error, and he urges that under In re Winship, 397 U. S. 358 (1970), a state prisoner is entitled to a determination whether the record evidence could support a finding of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. We agree. Jackson v. Virginia, ante, p. 307. Nonetheless, under the circumstances of this ease we conclude that a remand for further consideration in light of Jackson v. Virginia would be inappropriate.
The petitioner has contended that the prosecution failed to meet its burden because it relied upon lay witnesses to prove sanity without providing any expert testimony to rebut his expert opinion testimony. But, as the Court of Appeals noted, under Indiana law sanity may be established by either expert or lay testimony. The state appellate court, in an opinion thoroughly discussing the record evidence and the petitioner’s sufficiency challenge, concluded that the lay evidence in this case could have been credited by the jury, and it held that the State’s evidence was fully sufficient to support a jury finding beyond a reasonable doubt that the petitioner was sane at the time of the killing.
The Court of Appeals properly deferred to the Indiana law governing proof of sanity. Although that court applied an improper legal standard when it considered the petitioner’s due process claim, it is clear from its opinion that the essence of that challenge concerned the rule of state law that permits the State to rely on lay proof of sanity. It is likewise clear from the record that under the standard enunciated in Jackson v. Virginia, the evidence in support of this conviction was constitutionally adequate.
Accordingly, the writ of certiorari is granted, and the judgment of the Court of Appeals is affirmed.
It is so ordered.
The District Court found, and the Court of Appeals' agreed, that the petitioner had failed to exhaust his available state remedies on all but his challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence. The petitioner takes issue with this ruling, but we are satisfied that it was correct.
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine whether the decision of the court whose decision the Supreme Court reviewed was itself liberal or conservative. 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. The lower court's decision direction is unspecifiable if the manner in which the Supreme Court took jurisdiction is original or certification; or if the direction of the Supreme Court's decision is unspecifiable and the main issue pertains to private law or interstate relations