This section contains the nature of the case and procedural background.

Boykin (D), an indigent, was on trial for five counts of common-law robbery. The offense was punishable in Alabama (P) by death. D was appointed counsel and pled guilty at his arraignment. The judge asked no questions of D about his plea. When instructing the jury, the judge stressed that D had pled guilty in five cases of robbery. The jury found D guilty and sentenced him to death. D appealed, claiming that his guilty plea was ineffective. Taking an automatic appeal to the Alabama Supreme Court, D argued that a sentence of death for common law robbery was cruel and unusual punishment within the meaning of the Federal Constitution, a suggestion which that court unanimously rejected. On their own motion, however, four of the seven justices discussed the constitutionality of the process by which the trial judge had accepted D's guilty plea and then affirmed the sentence.

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