## Facts

- Roosevelt Green, Jr. and Carzell Moore were jointly indicted in Georgia for the rape and murder of Teresa Carol Allen but were tried separately.
- Moore was tried first, convicted of rape and murder, and sentenced to death.
- Green was later convicted of murder; a separate capital-sentencing proceeding determined whether he would receive the death penalty.
- At Green’s penalty phase, the defense sought to present testimony from Thomas Pasby, a witness who had testified for the State at Moore’s trial.
- Pasby would have testified that Moore confessed he alone killed Allen, stating he shot her twice after ordering Green to run an errand.
- The trial court excluded Pasby’s testimony as inadmissible hearsay under Georgia law.
- The State argued at sentencing that, absent direct evidence of the killing’s circumstances, the jury could infer Green’s direct participation from the fact that multiple bullets were fired.
- Green was sentenced to death, and the Supreme Court of Georgia affirmed the conviction and sentence.

## Issues

1. Whether the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment was violated when a capital sentencer was prevented from hearing highly relevant mitigation testimony that bore substantial indicia of reliability, solely because it was hearsay under state law.
2. Whether due process limits a state’s mechanical application of hearsay rules at capital sentencing, particularly where the State previously relied on the same testimony to obtain a death sentence against a co-defendant.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court vacated Green’s death sentence and remanded.
- The Court held that, in the circumstances presented, excluding Pasby’s testimony violated due process “regardless of whether the proffered testimony comes within Georgia’s hearsay rule.”
- The ruling left Green’s murder conviction undisturbed and addressed only the capital sentencing proceeding.

## Legal Principles

- In capital sentencing, due process may require admission of otherwise inadmissible hearsay when it is highly relevant to a central punishment issue and there are substantial reasons to assume its reliability.
- Evidentiary rules, including hearsay rules, may not be applied mechanically to prevent consideration of evidence necessary to fundamental fairness in a death-penalty sentencing determination.
- Reliability may be supported by factors such as a declaration against penal interest, corroborating evidence, absence of apparent motive to fabricate, and the State’s prior reliance on the same evidence in a related proceeding.
- Capital sentencers must be allowed to consider relevant mitigating evidence concerning the circumstances of the offense and the defendant’s culpability.

## Conclusion

Because the excluded testimony directly bore on whether Green was a direct participant in the killing and had substantial indicia of reliability—reinforced by the State’s earlier use of the same testimony to secure Moore’s death sentence—its exclusion at Green’s penalty phase denied due process, requiring vacatur of the death sentence and remand for further proceedings.


Green v. Georgia, 442 U.S. 95 (1979)