district attorney

In March 1970, Jane Roe, a single woman residing in Dallas County, Texas, instituted a federal action against the District Attorney of the county. She sought a declaratory judgment that the Texas criminal abortion statutes were unconstitutional on their face. She also sought an injunction restraining enforcement of the statutes. Roe alleged that she was unmarried and pregnant. She wished to terminate her pregnancy by an abortion performed by a competent licensed physician under safe clinical conditions. She was unable to obtain a legal abortion in Texas because her life did not appear to be threatened by continuation of the pregnancy. She could not afford to travel to another jurisdiction to secure a legal abortion. James Hubert Hallford, a licensed physician, sought and was granted leave to intervene in Roe's action. In his complaint he alleged that he had been arrested previously for violations of the Texas abortion statutes. Two such prosecutions were pending against him in the Criminal District Court of Dallas County. He described conditions of patients who came to him seeking abortions. He claimed that for many cases he was unable to determine whether they fell within or outside the exception recognized by Article 1196 of the Texas Penal Code. John and Mary Doe, a married couple, filed a companion complaint also naming the District Attorney as defendant. The Does alleged that they were a childless couple. Mrs. Doe was suffering from a neural-chemical disorder. Her physician had advised her to avoid pregnancy until her condition materially improved. She had discontinued use of birth control pills pursuant to medical advice. If she should become pregnant she would want to terminate the pregnancy by an abortion performed by a competent licensed physician under safe clinical conditions. The two actions were consolidated and heard together by a duly convened three-judge district court for the Northern District of Texas. Upon the filing of affidavits, motions were made for dismissal and for summary judgment. The court held that Roe and members of her class and Dr. Hallford had standing to sue and presented justiciable controversies. The Does had failed to allege facts sufficient to state a present controversy and did not have standing. It concluded that the Texas criminal abortion statutes were void on their face. The court dismissed the Does' complaint while denying injunctive relief. The plaintiffs Roe and Doe and the intervenor Hallford appealed to the Supreme Court from that part of the District Court's judgment denying the injunction. The defendant District Attorney cross-appealed from the grant of declaratory relief. Both sides also took protective appeals to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. That court ordered the appeals held in abeyance pending decision by the Supreme Court.

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In March 1944 petitioner Fisher, the janitor at the library of the Cathedral of Saint Peter and Saint Paul in Washington, D.C., killed librarian Catherine Cooper Reardon inside the library building between eight and nine o'clock on the morning of March 1. Reardon had complained a few days earlier to the verger about Fisher's care of the premises, and the verger had informed Fisher of the complaint. Fisher and Reardon were alone in the library at the time of the homicide. Fisher testified that Reardon spoke insulting words about his work, after which he slapped her impulsively. He ran up a flight of steps toward an exit but turned back, seized a stick of firewood, struck her, and when the stick broke choked her to silence. He then dragged her to a lavatory and left the body to clean up some spots of blood on the floor outside. While Fisher was doing this cleaning up, the victim started hollering again. Fisher then took out his knife and stuck her in the throat. After that he dragged her body down into an adjoining pump pit, where it was found the next morning. Fisher's accounts of the events varied. His original confession made no reference to insulting words from Reardon. His written confession mentioned them, and his trial testimony amplified their effect on him. In the written confession he admitted his main reason for assaulting her was that she had reported him for not cleaning the floor. The Deputy Coroner testified that the knife wound was not deep and only went through the skin. Defense psychiatrists testified that Fisher was a psychopathic personality of a predominantly aggressive type, mentally somewhat below average, with minor stigmata of mental subnormalcy, and that he was unable by reason of a deranged mental condition to resist the impulse to kill. The prosecution introduced competent evidence that Fisher was capable of understanding the nature and quality of his acts. All evidence offered by the defense was received by the trial court. Fisher was tried in the District Court of the United States for the District of Columbia on an indictment charging killing by choking and strangling with deliberate and premeditated malice. The jury returned a verdict of guilty on the first count, and the court imposed a sentence of death. The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia affirmed the judgment and sentence.