South Carolina V. Gathers

Gathers, 490 U.S. 805 (1989), was a United States Supreme Court case which held that testimony in the form of a victim impact statement is admissible during the sentencing phase of a trial only if it directly relates to the "circumstances of the crime." This case was later overruled by the Supreme Court decision in Payne v. Tennessee.

South Carolina v. Gathers
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued March 28, 1989 Decided June 12, 1989
Full case name	Demitrius Gathers v. Tennessee
Citations	490 U.S. 805 (more) 109 S. Ct. 2207; 104 L. Ed. 2d 876; 1989 U.S. LEXIS 2817
Case history
Prior	State v. Gathers, 295 S.C. 476, 369 S.E.2d 140 (1988); cert. granted, 488 U.S. 888 (1988).
Subsequent	Rehearing denied, 492 U.S. 938 (1989).
Holding
Victim impact evidence is relevant at the sentencing stage and thus admissible only if it directly relates to the circumstances of the crime. The content of religious cards possessed by the victim cannot equate to such relevance and contributes nothing to the defendant's blameworthiness.
Court membership
Chief Justice William Rehnquist Associate Justices William J. Brennan Jr. · Byron White Thurgood Marshall · Harry Blackmun John P. Stevens · Sandra Day O'Connor Antonin Scalia · Anthony Kennedy
Case opinions
Majority	Brennan, joined by White, Marshall, Blackmun, Stevens
Concurrence	White
Dissent	O'Connor, joined by Rehnquist, Kennedy
Dissent	Scalia
Laws applied
U.S. Const. amends. VIII, XIV
Overruled by
Payne v. Tennessee, 501 U.S. 808 (1991)

In a majority opinion by Justice Brennan, the Court held that Booth v. Maryland (1987) left open the possibility that the kind of information contained in victim impact statements could be admissible if it "relate[d] directly to the circumstances of the crime." Though South Carolina asserted that such was the case, the Court disagreed, and held that the content of the cards at issue was irrelevant to the "circumstances of the crime."

Justice O'Connor authored a dissenting opinion, joined by Chief Justice Rehnquist and Justice Kennedy. Justice Scalia also dissented and expressly argued that Booth v. Maryland should be overruled.

The impact of the case was somewhat short-lived, as two years later, the Rehnquist Court decided Payne, which has had a significant impact in victim's rights, criminology, and the lives of the parties involved.

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