Jordaan Stanly Creque v. Alabama
DueProcess Punishment
Does a capital murder conviction and death sentence violate due-process, trial-by-jury, and reliable-process rights when a law-enforcement witness who sat at counsel table throughout trial gives testimony bolstering other witnesses' credibility and summarizing the state's case?
QUESTION PRESENTED Throughout Jordaan Creque’s capital murder trial, the State’s lead witness, a police lieutenant, sat at counsel table with the prosecution. The State called the lieutenant as its last witness, and he recounted the testimony of several of the witnesses, delivered an account that conformed to theirs, and bolstered their credibility with his endorsement. Mr. Creque subsequently received a death sentence from a nonunanimous jury after a trial whose reliability was undermined by this summation and bolstering from the lead law enforcement witness. These facts give rise to the following question: Where a law enforcement witness who has been seated at counsel table throughout trial gives testimony bolstering other witnesses’ credibility and summarizing the State’s case, do the resulting capital murder conviction and death sentence violate the defendant’s rights to due process, trial by jury, and a reliable process in keeping with this Court’s heightened standards in death penalty cases? i