Weeks v. Payne
In brief
The Supreme Court threw out Weeks’s petition (dismissed it) and refused his request to proceed without paying the filing fee (denied it); it did not decide his underlying claim.
- Where it stands
- Decided
Decided · May 18, 2020
- What it’s about
- The Court denied Weeks’s petition for review, leaving the Missouri court’s judgment in place.
- Who it affects
- The order ended Weeks’s request for Supreme Court review but left unanswered whether the Eleventh Circuit’s decision was consistent with Moore v. Texas.
Summary: written with AI from the case record.
What it's about
Weeks argued that his guilty plea to rape and kidnapping violated due process because he alleged it was entered without a valid jury-trial waiver or sufficient admission of guilt and was obtained through coercion.
The petition asked whether the Eleventh Circuit properly applied the Supreme Court’s Moore v. Texas decisions when reviewing Alabama’s finding that Weeks was not intellectually disabled.
Question presented
Whether the Eleventh Circuit’s decision—that the Alabama Supreme Court’s determination that Petitioner was not intellectually disabled was not based on an unreasonable determination of the facts—is contrary to this Court’s decisions in Moore v. Texas, 137 S. Ct. 1039 (2017) (Moore I), and Moore v. Texas, 139 S. Ct. 666 (2019) (Moore II)?
What the Court decided
Holding
The motion for leave to proceed in forma pauperis is denied, and the petition for a writ of certiorari is dismissed. See Rule 39.8. As the petitioner has repeatedly abused this Court's process, the Clerk is directed not to accept any further petitions in noncriminal matters from petitioner unless the docketing fee required by Rule 38(a) is paid and the petition is submitted in compliance with Rule 33.1. See Martin v. District of Columbia Court of Appeals, 506 U. S. 1 (1992) (per curiam).
- Result
- Dismissed
The Court's reasoning
The order cited Rule 39.8 and said Weeks had repeatedly abused the Court’s process. It did not decide the intellectual-disability question.
What's next
This docket action is finished. The Clerk will not accept any further petition from Weeks in a noncriminal matter unless he pays the fee required by Rule 38(a) and submits the petition in compliance with Rule 33.1.
Documents
Opinions
Key filings
Docket activity
New analysis added
AI analysis generated: Case Briefing
New analysis added
New analysis added
New analysis added
Show 5 moreShow fewer
AI analysis generated: Decision Record
New analysis added
Case data updated: summary, question_presented, generation_metadata
Opinion added: Weeks
Brief added: Petition
Sources
Primary materials plus reporting. Best-effort analysis: this explainer relies on a mix of primary materials and trusted secondary sources. Official filings and opinions remain authoritative.