Wansing V. Hargett

In the final scene of The Philadelphia Story, the late Katherine Hepburn faces a room packed with wedding guests and calls off her impending marriage to a man she has come to despise. She begins hesitantly and apologetically, showing just how mortifying the experience must be, but gains in confidence as she speaks - perhaps emboldened by the knowledge that a debonair Cary Grant and an earthy Jimmy Stewart are waiting in the wings as possible replacements for the rejected groom. The question in this case is whether the degree of certitude required to cancel a wedding at the last minute provides so flawed an analogy to the degree of certitude required to convict a defendant of manslaughter that a verdict rendered by a jury under the influence of such an analogy must be overturned on habeas review.