156
OCTOBER TERM, 1999
Syllabus
certiorari to the united states court of appeals for the fourth circuit
No. 99-7000. Argued April 18, 2000—Decided June 12, 2000
Petitioner Ramdass was sentenced to death in Virginia for the murder of Mohammed Kayani. Under Virginia law, a conviction does not become final until the jury returns a verdict and, some time thereafter, the judge enters a final judgment of conviction. At the time of the Kayani sentencing trial, a final judgment had been entered against Ramdass for an armed robbery at a Pizza Hut restaurant and a jury had found him guilty of an armed robbery at a Domino's Pizza restaurant, but no final judgment had been entered. The prosecutor argued future dangerousness at the Kayani sentencing trial, claiming that Ramdass would commit further violent crimes if released. The jury recommended death. After final judgment was entered on the Domino's conviction, the Kayani judge held a hearing to consider whether to impose the recommended sentence. Arguing for a life sentence, Ramdass claimed that his prior convictions made him ineligible for parole under Virginia's three-strikes law, which denies parole to a person convicted of three separate felony offenses of murder, rape, or armed robbery, which were not part of a common act, transaction, or scheme. The court sentenced Ramdass to death, and the Virginia Supreme Court affirmed. On remand from this Court, the Virginia Supreme Court again affirmed the sentence, declining to apply the holding of Simmons v. South Carolina, 512 U. S. 154, that a jury considering imposing death should be told if the defendant is parole ineligible under state law. The court concluded that Ramdass was not parole ineligible when the jury was considering his sentence because the Domino's crime, in which no final judgment had been entered, did not count as a conviction for purposes of the three-strikes law. Ultimately, Ramdass sought federal habeas relief. The District Court granted his petition, but the Court of Appeals reversed.
Held: The judgment is affirmed.
187 F. 3d 396, affirmed.
Justice Kennedy, joined by The Chief Justice, Justice Scalia, and Justice Thomas, concluded that Ramdass was not entitled to a jury instruction on parole ineligibility under Virginia's three-strikes law. Pp. 165-178.
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