Raley v. Ohio

Summary

The Court dismissed the appeals for lack of appellate jurisdiction, treated the appeal papers as petitions for certiorari, and granted review. Justice Brennan's opinion held that due process prohibited convicting Raley, Brown, and Morgan for invoking a privilege against self-incrimination that the investigating commission had affirmatively represented as available, notwithstanding an Ohio immunity statute that eliminated the privilege. The federal claim was adequately preserved because the Ohio Supreme Court had addressed its substance. The Court divided equally over Stern, leaving his conviction affirmed without a controlling merits rationale. Brennan and three other Justices would also have reversed Stern's conviction because the commission's direction to answer rested on the same misleading assurance that the privilege generally remained available. Justice Clark, joined by Justices Frankfurter, Harlan, and Whittaker, concurred in the opinion concerning the other three witnesses but concluded that Stern's explicit direction to answer defeated his entrapment-based due process claim. Justice Stewart did not participate.