Early in the morning of December 1, 1986, David Dawson and three other inmates escaped from the Delaware Correctional Center at Smyrna.

The Supreme Court of Florida imposed the death penalty on Barclay and co-defendant Jacob John Dougan.

In 1985, however, the court reversed itself by ordering that Barclay's sentence be commuted to life in prison with eligibility for parole in 25 years and that Dougan be re-sentenced.

[3] Chief Justice Rehnquist noted that because of the narrowness of the stipulation regarding the Aryan Brotherhood that the Delaware trial court agreed to – that is, because the trial court did not seek to provide evidence that the chapter Dawson was associated with was engaged in or endorsed racist activities, or was engaged in or endorsed any other violent or unlawful acts – it violated Dawson's rights under both the First and Fourteenth Amendments.

Chief Justice Rehnquist also noted that even if the Aryan Brotherhood chapter did hold racist beliefs, elements of racial hatred were absent in this case.

Chief Justice Rehnquist went further by noting: The material adduced by the dissent as to the nature of prison gangs...would, if it had been presented to the jury, have made this a different case.

But we do not have the same confidence as the dissent does that jurors would be familiar with the court decisions and studies upon which it relies.Upon re-sentencing, David Dawson was sentenced to death a second time on April 2, 1993.