Speck’s death penalty was overturned by the Burger-led US Supreme Court in June 1971 while still upholding his conviction. Since it did not overturn, I don’t think that it was listed as a decision but it was apparently William O Douglas, William Brennan, Potter Stewart, Byron White and Thurgood Marshall deciding versus Hugo Black, John Harlan, Harry Blackmun and Warren Burger.
In November of 1972, the US Supreme Court, with William Rehnquist replacing John Harlan, ruled in Furman v Georgia, that the death penalty was unconstitutional and thus every state death penalty had to be converted to prison terms. In this case, it was William O Douglas, William Brennan, Potter Stewart, Byron White and Thurgood Marshall deciding.
Speck was in jail from July 1966 to his conviction in 1968 and on the Illinois Death Row to 1971, then under sentence of 400-1200 years until he died, 25 years after his victims, in December of 1991. In 1978, 6 years AFTER the Supreme Court overturned his death penalty, he freely confessed to Chicago reporter Bob Greene, that he did the killing but remembers only parts. He also said that he enjoyed getting high on drugs in prison and a post-death video came to light showing him doing cocaine, having sex and boasting how much he enjoyed his prison time.
I only go into this detail to remind ALL OF US how members of the US Supreme Court can have a strong effect. The next President has a guarantee of one and probable 2 more appointments to this body, given that Ruth Ginsburg and Anthony Kennedy are both at or over 80. Obama already got 2 with Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.
Many of the nurses he killed were from the Philippines.
A really bad man
He should have gone down brutally in the joint