Dawson v. Delaware, 503 U.S. 159, 7 (1992)

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Cite as: 503 U. S. 159 (1992)

Opinion of the Court

ship in the organization was among the associational freedoms protected by the First Amendment. Though Abel did not involve a capital sentencing proceeding, its logic is perfectly applicable to such a proceeding. We therefore conclude that the Constitution does not erect a per se barrier to the admission of evidence concerning one's beliefs and associations at sentencing simply because those beliefs and associations are protected by the First Amendment.

Although we cannot accept Dawson's broad submission, we nevertheless agree with him that, in this case, the receipt into evidence of the stipulation regarding his membership in the Aryan Brotherhood was constitutional error. Before the penalty hearing, the prosecution claimed that its expert witness would show that the Aryan Brotherhood is a white racist prison gang that is associated with drugs and violent escape attempts at prisons, and that advocates the murder of fellow inmates. If credible and otherwise admissible evidence to that effect had been presented, we would have a much different case. But, after reaching an agreement with Dawson, the prosecution limited its proof regarding the Aryan Brotherhood to the stipulation. The brief stipulation proved only that an Aryan Brotherhood prison gang originated in California in the 1960's, that it entertains white racist beliefs, and that a separate gang in the Delaware prison system calls itself the Aryan Brotherhood. We conclude that the narrowness of the stipulation left the Aryan Brotherhood evidence totally without relevance to Dawson's sentencing proceeding.

As an initial matter, the second sentence of the stipulation, when carefully parsed, says nothing about the beliefs of the Aryan Brotherhood "chapter" in the Delaware prisons. Prior to trial, the prosecution acknowledged that there are differences among the various offshoots of the Aryan Brotherhood, stating that "there are cells or specific off-shoots within various local jurisdictions that don't see eye to eye or share a union, if you will." App. 33. But the juxtaposition

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