Jacobs v. Scott

Rule of Law:

The Due Process Clause is implicated when a state seeks to execute a defendant based on a factual theory that the state's own prosecutor has formally and unequivocally repudiated in a subsequent judicial proceeding for the same crime.

Facts:

• Jesse Dewayne Jacobs was arrested for the murder of Etta Urdíales.
• Following his arrest, Jacobs gave a videotaped confession stating that he abducted and fatally shot Urdíales, and he led investigators to her body.
• At his own trial, Jacobs testified that his confession was false, claiming he had confessed because he preferred a death sentence to life in prison.
• Jacobs testified that he took Urdíales to an abandoned house where his sister, Bobbie Hogan, was waiting, but that Hogan shot and killed Urdíales while he was outside.
• The prosecution at Jacobs' trial disputed this testimony, arguing that Jacobs and Jacobs alone killed Urdíales.
• Several months later, at Bobbie Hogan's trial for the same murder, the same prosecutor's office changed its position.
• At Hogan's trial, the prosecutor stated that further investigation showed Hogan, not Jacobs, had killed the victim, and vouched for the veracity of Jacobs' testimony that Hogan was the shooter.

Procedural Posture:

• Jesse Jacobs was convicted of capital murder in a Texas state trial court and sentenced to death.
• Jacobs' conviction and sentence were affirmed on appeal by the Texas courts of appeal.
• Jacobs sought federal habeas corpus relief, which was denied by the federal district court.
• The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed the district court's denial of habeas relief.
• Jacobs filed an application for a stay of execution and a petition for a writ of certiorari with the Supreme Court of the United States.