Adams v. Texas

{{Use mdy dates|date=September 2023}}

{{Infobox SCOTUS case

|Litigants=Adams v. Texas

|ArgueDate=March 24

|ArgueYear=1980

|DecideDate=June 25

|DecideYear=1980

|FullName=Randall Dale Adams v. State of Texas

|USVol=448

|USPage=38

|ParallelCitations=100 S. Ct. 2521; 65 L. Ed. 2d 581

|Prior=Certiorari to the Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas

|Subsequent=577 S.W.2d 717, reversed.

|Holding=A Texas requirement that jurors swear an oath that the mandatory imposition of a death sentence would not interfere with their consideration of factual matters such as guilt or innocence during a trial is unconstitutional.

|Majority=White

|JoinMajority=Brennan, Stewart, Blackmun, Powell, Stevens

|Concurrence=Burger (in the judgment)

|JoinConcurrence=

|Concurrence2=Brennan

|JoinConcurrence2=

|Concurrence3=Marshall

|JoinConcurrence3=

|Dissent=Rehnquist

|LawsApplied=

}}

Adams v. Texas, 448 U.S. 38 (1980), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held on an 8–1 vote that, consistent with its prior opinion in Witherspoon v. Illinois, a Texas requirement that jurors swear an oath that the mandatory imposition of a death sentence would not interfere with their consideration of factual matters such as guilt or innocence during a trial was unconstitutional.

The surrounding factual issues (involving defendant Randall Dale Adams) were the subject of a partially autobiographical book of the same name, and were featured in the 1988 movie The Thin Blue Line.