New York Times

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday heard arguments in a death penalty case and issued decisions on the monitoring of sex offenders and on the significance of a lawyer’s brief absence from a criminal trial.

DEATH PENALTY Monday’s arguments, in Brumfield v. Cain, No. 13-1433, concerned Kevan Brumfield, a Louisiana man who was sentenced to death in 1995 for killing a Baton Rouge police officer. Seven years later, in Atkins v. Virginia, the Supreme Court barred the execution of the intellectually disabled.

Mr. Brumfield sought to be spared on that ground, but was denied a hearing. A state judge reasoned that the evidence submitted at Mr. Brumfield’s trial was sufficient to resolve the issue against him even though he had not argued that his intellectual disability was a reason to bar his execution.

A federal trial judge disagreed. After a seven-day hearing, the judge concluded that Mr. Brumfeld’s I.Q. and limited abilities to perform basic functions proved that he was disabled. The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, in New Orleans, reversed, ruling that the state court had been entitled to rely on the trial-court record.

During Monday’s arguments, several justices seemed inclined to rule in Mr. Brumfield’s favor, but on narrow grounds that would give rise to no larger precedent.

“I think you’re making a strong argument that is purely a factual argument about this case,” Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. told Mr. Brumfield’s lawyer, Michael B. DeSanctis. But the case did not require the court to consider “categorical rule” about when hearings must be held, Justice Alito said.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. seemed to agree that the issue before the court boiled down to “a lot of discussion on the evidence at issue in this particular case.”

“What is the broader significance of that discussion here?” he asked, suggesting that the answer was none.

Justice Stephen G. Breyer told Premila Burns, a lawyer for the state, that he was of mixed minds.

“If I had to decide at this moment whether there is enough evidence for you to win on the point is he intellectually disabled, I would say you win,” Justice Breyer said. “If I have to decide whether or not he presented enough evidence to get a hearing, I would say you lose.”

SEX OFFENDERS In a unanimous unsigned opinion in Grady v. North Carolina, No. 14-593, the court ruled that requiring a convicted sex offender to wear a GPS device on an ankle for the rest of his life raised concern under the Fourth Amendment, which bars unreasonable searches and seizures.

The case involved Torrey Dale Grady, who had twice been convicted of sex offenses. A North Carolina appeals court ruled that round-the-clock monitoring raised no constitutional issues.

In his brief asking the court to consider his case, Mr. Grady said the device was not only intrusive but also cumbersome, as it “requires him to be plugged into a wall outlet at least once a day for four to six hours at a time.”

The Supreme Court ruled only that the monitoring amounted to a search under the Fourth Amendment, returning the case to the lower court for analysis of the question .

“The Fourth Amendment prohibits only unreasonable searches,” the court’s unsigned opinion said. “The reasonableness of a search depends on the totality of the circumstances, including the nature and purpose of the search and the extent to which the search intrudes upon reasonable privacy expectations.”

ASSISTANCE OF COUNSEL In a second unanimous and unsigned opinion, in Woods v. Donald, No. 14-618, the court ruled against a Michigan inmate serving a life sentence for his role in the killing of a drug dealer.

The inmate, Cory Donald, said he had been denied effective assistance of counsel because his lawyer had been absent from the trial for about 10 minutes during testimony concerning other defendants. On his return, the lawyer said of the testimony, “I had no dog in the race and no interest in that.”

Michigan state courts rejected Mr. Donald’s request for a new trial, but a federal trial court and a divided panel of the Sixth Circuit, in Cincinnati, sided with Mr. Donald.

The Supreme Court reversed, saying that the federal courts had failed to show sufficient deference to their state counterparts as required by a 1996 federal law limiting federal habeas corpus challenges. The law allows federal court to provide relief only when the state court’s ruling is at odds with clearly established Supreme Court precedent.

That standard had not been satisfied, Monday’s decision said. “None of our holdings,” it said, “address counsel’s absence during testimony that is irrelevant within the defendant’s own theory of the case.”