Raymond Wallace Shuman (pic­tured), whose case led to a 1987 U.S. Supreme Court deci­sion affirm­ing the uncon­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of manda­to­ry death sen­tences, has died in a Nevada prison at age 83. Shuman, one of the longest-incar­cer­at­ed pris­on­ers in Nevada his­to­ry, was serv­ing a life sen­tence for a 1958 mur­der when he was con­vict­ed of killing a fel­low pris­on­er in 1973. At that time, Nevada law man­dat­ed the death penal­ty for life-sen­tenced pris­on­ers con­vict­ed of anoth­er first-degree mur­der. Then, in 1976, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a series of deci­sions uphold­ing the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, but over­turn­ing manda­to­ry death-penal­ty statutes in North Carolina and Louisiana. The 1976 cas­es estab­lished an indi­vid­u­al­ized-sen­tenc­ing require­ment pur­suant to which no one could be sen­tenced to death with­out first hav­ing the oppor­tu­ni­ty to present rea­sons to spare his or her life. Shortly there­after, Nevada repealed its manda­to­ry death sen­tenc­ing law. Shuman, who was the first pris­on­er to face exe­cu­tion in Nevada after the 1976 rul­ings, chal­lenged the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of his sen­tence as vio­lat­ing the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. The Nevada Supreme Court upheld Shuman’s death sen­tence. Shuman’s lawyers then pre­sent­ed the issue to the Nevada fed­er­al courts, which declared the state’s manda­to­ry cap­i­tal-pun­ish­ment statute uncon­sti­tu­tion­al. The pros­e­cu­tion appealed, argu­ing that the Supreme Court’s 1976 deci­sions had left open the ques­tion of whether the death penal­ty could be man­dat­ed in cer­tain extreme­ly nar­row class­es of cas­es such as prison killings by life-sen­tenced pris­on­ers. The U.S. Supreme Court agreed to review the case and, in a 6 – 3 rul­ing in Sumner v. Shuman, issued on June 22, 1987, the Court declared the statute uncon­sti­tu­tion­al. In his opin­ion for the Court, Justice Harry Blackmun wrote: Although a sen­tenc­ing author­i­ty may decide that a sanc­tion less than death is not appro­pri­ate in a par­tic­u­lar case, the fun­da­men­tal respect for human­i­ty under­ly­ing the Eighth Amendment requires that the defen­dant be able to present any rel­e­vant mit­i­gat­ing evi­dence that could jus­ti­fy a less­er sen­tence.” That evi­dence includ­ed the nature of the defen­dan­t’s pri­or con­vic­tion — Blackmun not­ed that Shuman had not been the trig­ger­man in the 1958 mur­der — the defen­dan­t’s back­ground, life his­to­ry, upbring­ing, and men­tal health, and any mit­i­gat­ing aspect of the cir­cum­stances of the offense. Shuman died around 2:25 p.m. on February 4 at the Carson Tahoe Regional Medical Center in Carson City, accord­ing to the Nevada Department of Corrections. 

(Rio Lacanlale, Inmate who chal­lenged Nevada death penal­ty law dies at 83, Las Vegas Review-Journal, February 4, 2018; Paul Davenport, Agency: Nevada Inmate Serving 2 Life Terms Dead at Age 83, Associated Press, February 3, 2018.) See U.S. Supreme Court and Sentencing.

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