Posted on 06/25/2002 5:16:15 PM PDT by ex-Texan
US Supreme Court Ruling Will Remove 800 From Death Row
6-25-2
(AFP) - The US Supreme Court ruled that only a jury may impose the death penalty, a landmark decision that could affect hundreds of condemned prisoners.
The 7-2 ruling Monday in the case of Timothy Ring of Arizona puts in limbo death sentences against some 800 inmates and will force changes in the death penalty law in nine states where judges have been allowed to impose the sentence: Florida, Arizona, Idaho, Colorado, Montana, Alabama, Indiana, Delaware and Nebraska.
The justices found that the US Constitution's Sixth Amendment guarantee of a trial by jury was violated by allowing judges to impose death sentences.
"The right to trial by jury guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment would be senselessly diminished if it encompassed the factfinding necessary to increase a defendant's sentence by two years, but not the factfinding necessary to put him to death," Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote in the majority decision.
"We hold that the Sixth Amendment applies to both."
The decision is an additional blow from the high court to the death penalty -- which remains legal in 38 of the 50 United States -- after Thursday's decision which effectively prohibited the execution of the mentally retarded on the grounds that it constituted cruel and unusual punishment forbidden by the Eighth Amendment to the US Constitution.
In nine US states, although juries determine the guilt of the accused, a judge has, until now, had the power to increase the sentence, and even to condemn the prisoner to death, under aggravating circumstances.
The 7-2 ruling included votes from justices normally considered liberal as well as conservative.
Two executions initially slated for early February were suspended by Florida officials once the high court agreed to review Ring's challenge to the constitutionality of his sentence.
Ring was condemned in 1994 for the murder of an armored car driver whose body was discovered only after the truck had been abandoned. Ring had not been placed at the scene of the crime, and the jury found him guilty of second-degree murder, which in Arizona, absent of aggravating circumstances, carries a maximum penalty of life in prison.
However, after the testimony of Ring's accomplices, the judge found an aggravating circumstance: that the murder had been committed for financial gain. He sentenced Ring to death.
"Arizona presents no specific reasons for excepting capital defendants from the constitutional protections extended to defendants generally, and none is readily apparent," Ginsburg wrote.
Justice Sandra Day O'Connor pointed to the more than 1,000 challenges to death sentences that have already been filed. She wrote in her dissent -- joined by Chief Justice William Rehnquist -- that the court system could expect to be overwhelmed with such cases.
Thirty-three people have been executed in the United States since the beginning of the year, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, an anti-death penalty group.
"The Supreme Court, like so many other institutions in our society, has rightly expressed deep reservations about the way the death penalty is being implemented," said the center's director, Richard Dieter.
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Gee, I don't see the words "imposed sentence" anywhere.
Have they thrown out the conviction or can we just not trust judges to decide anything in general?
There is gonna be some celebrating behind bars tonight.
Time for the citizens to step up and do their duty when they serve on a jury.
Either that - or let the killers be paroled back to the streets. The death penalty makes sure they will never kill an innocent child - or any person again!!
But didn't they (the states) already?
However, after the testimony of Ring's accomplices, the judge found an aggravating circumstance: that the murder had been committed for financial gain. He sentenced Ring to death.
So, looks like this just goes back to a life in prison sentence. For the most part, that's all that death row is, anyway.
Good for you!!! Stay true to your beliefs and don't let any lame brain liberals make you change your mind!!
That's because the author of this article doesn't know what he's talking about. The SC did not rule that only a "jury may impose the death penalty." That statement isn't even close to being accurate. The Court simply stated that facts not presented to a jury and proved beyond a reasonable doubt cannot be used by a judge to increase a defendants sentence beyond the prescribed statutory maximum.
For example... If the prescribed statutory maximum for Crime X is the death penalty, and a jury finds a defendant guilty of Crime X, the judge is most certainly free to sentence the defendant to death. However, if the statutory maximum for Crime Z is life in prison, and a jury finds a defendant guilty of Crime Z, the judge can NOT then use additional info which the jury never saw and declare that the defendant should be sentenced to death because he is actually guilty of Crime X, not Crime Z.
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