## Facts

- A federal grand jury in the District of Connecticut indicted Charles Jackson, Glenn Walter Alexander De La Motte, and John Albert Walsh, Jr. for interstate kidnapping under 18 U.S.C. § 1201(a).
- The statute authorized death only “if the verdict of the jury shall so recommend,” and provided no mechanism for imposing death after a guilty plea or a bench trial.
- The district court dismissed the kidnapping count, holding the death-penalty provision unconstitutional because it made exposure to death the cost of asserting the right to jury trial, thereby coercing guilty pleas and jury-trial waivers.
- The United States appealed directly to the Supreme Court.

## Issues

1. Whether a statute that authorizes the death penalty only upon a jury’s recommendation impermissibly burdens the Fifth Amendment right not to plead guilty and the Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial by discouraging their exercise.
2. If the death-penalty provision is unconstitutional, whether it is severable from the remainder of the Federal Kidnapping Act.

## Decision

- The Court held the death-penalty clause unconstitutional because it imposed an impermissible burden on the exercise of constitutional rights.
- The Court held the invalid death-penalty clause severable from the remainder of § 1201(a).
- The Court reversed the dismissal and remanded, leaving the non-capital kidnapping offense and penalties intact.

## Legal Principles

- Government may not structure punishment so that asserting the right to jury trial or the right not to plead guilty uniquely exposes a defendant to a harsher penalty (here, capital punishment) unavailable if those rights are surrendered.
- A statutory scheme that “needlessly penalizes” the exercise of constitutional rights by deterring jury trials or encouraging guilty pleas through a right-linked penalty mechanism is unconstitutional.
- When a statutory provision is unconstitutional, courts may excise it and preserve the remainder of the statute if the remaining parts can function independently and reflect the legislature’s dominant purpose.

## Conclusion

The Court invalidated the Federal Kidnapping Act’s jury-only death-penalty mechanism because it deterred jury trials and guilty-plea resistance by conditioning capital exposure on exercising constitutional rights, but it preserved the rest of the statute by severing the unconstitutional clause.


United States v. Jackson, 390 U.S. 570 (1968)