High Court Overturns Death Sentences

AP ^ | 6-24-2002 | ANNE GEARAN

[Cagey]

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court overturned the death sentences of dozens of convicted killers Monday, ruling that juries and not judges must make such life-or-death decisions.

The 7-2 ruling affects the way death sentences are imposed in at least five states and means that more than 150 death sentences must be reconsidered.

Monday's ruling concerned instances in which juries determined defendants' guilt or innocence and judges alone decided their punishment. The court held that such a sentence imposed by a judge violates a defendant's constitutional right to a trial by jury.

It was the second major Supreme Court ruling in less than a week affecting the ways that states sentence people to death. Last week, the justices divided bitterly in exempting mentally retarded people from execution.

None of the cases attacks the basic constitutionality of capital punishment for the general population.

The court has also agreed to hear an appeal in the fall from Tennessee death row inmate Abu-Ali Abdur'Rahman. That case could have far-reaching effects if the justices decide to loosen the rules for when condemned inmates can get new evidence before a judge.

Nationwide, about 3,700 people await execution for crimes committed in the 38 states that allow the death penalty.

In some states juries determine guilt or innocence, but a judge then can base a death sentence on aggravating factors such as the heinous nature of a murder or whether it was committed for monetary gain.

Monday's ruling turned on the Constitution's guarantee of a jury of one's peers and a Supreme Court ruling two years ago that struck down another kind of sentence determined by a judge instead of a jury.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, writing for a majority that included an unusual alliance of conservative and liberal-leaning justices, said the court's 2000 ruling in a case called Apprendi v. New Jersey cannot be reconciled with the death penalty sentencing laws in Arizona and four other states in which one or more judges impose the sentence.

The Apprendi case concerned a judge's ability to lengthen a sentence by two years if a crime was determined to be a hate crime. The high court struck down that sentencing law.

"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," Ginsburg wrote. "We hold that the Sixth Amendment applies to both."

Ginsburg was joined by Justices John Paul Stevens, Antonin Scalia, Anthony M. Kennedy, David H. Souter and Clarence Thomas. Justice Stephen Breyer wrote separately to agree with the outcome.

The case concerned an Arizona inmate, and the ruling will immediately apply in that state and in Idaho and Montana, where a single judge decides the sentence. It will also apply immediately in Colorado and Nebraska, where a panel of judges makes the sentencing decision.

It was not immediately clear what will happen to inmates in those states. Some lawyers have said death row inmates' sentences could be commuted to life in prison, as was done when the Supreme Court put a temporary halt to the death penalty in the 1970s. Or the inmates could be resentenced, with some receiving death sentences all over again.

Also unclear was whether the ruling will have a spillover effect in four other states in which juries only recommend whether a convicted murderer should receive the death penalty or life in prison: Florida, Alabama, Indiana, and Delaware.

A judge makes the final call in those states. Indiana, however, recently passed a law that will require judges to follow a jury's sentencing recommendations.

In dissent, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor predicted that many inmates in the additional four states will challenge their sentences now.

The earlier Apprendi ruling "had a severely destabilizing effect on our criminal justice system," O'Connor wrote in a dissent joined by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist "The decision today is only going to add to these already serious effects."

Arizona has 129 people on death row, Idaho 21 and Montana six. Colorado has five, and Nebraska seven. Florida has 383, Alabama 187, Indiana 39 and Delaware 20.

Timothy Stuart Ring was convicted of killing an armored car driver during a 1994 robbery in Phoenix.

Ring challenged his sentence and Arizona's law on grounds that his constitutional right to a jury was violated when a judge held a separate hearing after the jury that convicted Ring was dismissed.

The judge heard testimony at a sentencing hearing from an accomplice who said Ring planned the robbery and murdered the guard. The judge then determined that the aggravating factors warranted death.

"I was essentially given two trials," Ring said in an Associated Press interview earlier this year. "One before a jury and then one before a judge."

The Arizona Supreme Court rejected Ring's constitutional challenge last year.

Ring's case put the court in an awkward position. The high court had already upheld the constitutionality of Arizona's law in 1990, but that was before its ruling in Apprendi v. New Jersey.

Finding the two rulings irreconcilable, the high court took the rare step of overturning one of its own fairly recent decisions. The first decision was written by O'Connor, who defended it in her dissent Monday.

The case is Ring v. Arizona, 01-488.

[Sir Gawain]

signle

Aha!

[goldstategop]

I'm decidedly unhappy they're going to have to be resentenced. Why couldn't the SCOTUS just have said so about juries having the role in the FIRST PLACE?

[Sir Gawain]

This decision is good in the long run.

[goldstategop]

Do you like though an activist court that seems to second guess its decision every 10 years? That bothers me.

[Sabertooth]

I agree, and this decision affirms my belief that this is the current trend.

Not disputing the trend, but I think that Scalia and Thomas voting with the majority indicates that there's a strict constructionist aspect to this case that is rather compelling. The penalty phase of a trial is still part of the trial, and therefore would seem, on the face of it, to be subject to the "trial by jury" clause of the Constitution.

That said, I'm still very curious to get a better handle on the Framers' opinions on this matter, and how prevalent captial sentences handed down by judges were in the late 18th Century.

[Stultis]

Yes, the Death Penalty Deters: If activists kill capital punishment, murder rates will rise.

[HELLRAISER II]

It's easy to see the realization of a Mad Max reality forming in the U.S. if you read into the Bleeding Heart Liberal pukes agenda and the whole world for that matter. It's beginning to look like the only justice one will recieve is one that we are willing to enforce ourselves, what a tragic outcome a world like that would be. God help us.

[chachacha]

Juice? Wow! I see this personal.

[Sabertooth]

signle is a bit of latin legalese. Not surprised you didn't know that.

[Lazamataz]

Lots of poeple make this msitake, apparantly.

[Mr. Bird]

Well, if this decision turns on the right to trial by jury and not the constitutionality of capital punishment, then it stands to reason that any sentence, and not just the death penalty, that isn't decided by a jury must be thrown out. That would include life sentences.

I follow you here. Seems odd that it could only apply to death sentences.

Therefore, if we follow the court's logic here, every signle one of these sentences is going to have to go back before a jury for penalty phase, or the convicted capital murderers will have to be released

I don't think so. In the normal course of events, the convicted murderer is not released before sentencing. These cats aren't going anywhere.

[the bottle let me down]

By the way, they're releasing cases like crazy now. The school choice decision should be out very soon.

Thursday is the next day decisions are released. It's also the last day before the Court's summer recess.

[Kevin Curry]

It's not an activist court in this case. The SC is correcting activist state courts . . .

No, it's correcting activist state legislatures that gave state court judges this power. Because legislatures have the duty to propose, debate, pass, modify, and rescind legislation, they are necessarily and properly activist.

SCOTUS, pursuing its activist role, is reigning in state legislatures. This has definite 10th Amendment implications.

[Sabertooth]

In the normal course of events, the convicted murderer is not released before sentencing. These cats aren't going anywhere.

True, the release would not be immediate. But I doubt they could be held indefinitely without a sentence. So, unless they're resentenced by a jury, what happens to them?

[HungarianGypsy]

This is a sad day for me. My father was the one Timothy Ring killed. I read the testimony in question. Any jury would have considered him even more guilty after hearing it. It feels like he's killed my father again.

[exmarine]

The High Court is a joke. Evil darwinian gods in black robes. At least 5 (maybe 6) should be impeached for crimes against humanity (unborn babies), and for ignoring original intent.

Nowhere in the Constitution does it say that the President and/or Congress cannot also move to strike a law (or ruling by an overactive judiciary) based on its unconstitutionality. We cannot have these unelected unaccountable corrupted elites creating new laws for the citizens of the United States. This is a constitutional republic not an oligarchy.

[Mr. Bird]

The earlier Apprendi ruling "had a severely destabilizing effect on our criminal justice system," O'Connor wrote in a dissent joined by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist "The decision today is only going to add to these already serious effects."

I have a problem with Sandy's sentiments here. I can't think of one reason why the SCOTUS (or its individual members) should base its decisions on how ugly the side effects should be. "Fixing" things is for the legislatures. If Law X is unconstitutional, strike it down. Don't fret about how doing so may wreak havoc. That's not your job.......

[babygene]

"800 murderers get off scot free thanks to a U.S Supreme Court technicality"

First of all, they will not get off scot free.

Further, I think the jury is much more likely to inpose the death penalty than is a judge.

As a person who has served as a jury forman in a felony case, I can tell you that jurors, in addition to being stupid,

(remember, half the people in this country are below average intelligence)

also make emotional decisions that have little to do with the facts or the law….

[LisaFab]

The SC is correcting activist state courts.

Just like they did to the Florida supremes when they tried to abet the theft of the election.

For a quick (read lazy) determination of the value of decisions for conservatives, scroll down and read the 'scoreboard' of who voted how.

[Cagey]

This is a sad day for me. My father was the one Timothy Ring killed.

I can not even imagine the kind of pain you and your family have gone through.