Patterson v. Texas, No. 02 – 6010

The Court denied Toronto Patterson’s appeal for a stay of exe­cu­tion in order to con­sid­er whether the exe­cu­tion of juve­nile offend­ers is cru­el and unusu­al pun­ish­ment. Three Supreme Court Justices — Justices John Paul Stevens, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Stephen G. Breyer — dis­sent­ed, stat­ing that the Court should con­sid­er review­ing the death penal­ty for those who com­mit crimes before the age of 18. In his dis­sent­ing opin­ion, Justice Stevens wrote, Given the appar­ent con­sen­sus that exists among the states and in the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty against the exe­cu­tion of a cap­i­tal sen­tence imposed on a juve­nile offend­er, I think it would be appro­pri­ate for the court to revis­it the issue at the ear­li­est oppor­tu­ni­ty.” (Washington Post, August 29, 2002). Read Justice Stevens’s dis­sent­ing opinion.

Horn v. Banks, No. 01 – 1385

In a unan­i­mous deci­sion, the U.S. Supreme Court remand­ed the case of George Banks of Pennsylvania to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit find­ing that the low­er court erred in not per­form­ing a Teague retroac­tiv­i­ty analy­sis before grant­i­ng Bank’s peti­tion for fed­er­al habeas cor­pus relief from his death sen­tence. The Court, in an unsigned opin­ion and with­out oral argu­ments in the case, held that the low­er court must deter­mine if new stan­dards for jury instruc­tions, set by the Supreme Court in Mills v. Maryland in 1988 and lat­er clar­i­fied in 1990, should be applied retroac­tive­ly to Banks, who was con­vict­ed before the new jury instruc­tions went into effect. (Horn v. Banks, No. 01 – 1385. June 17, 2002) Read the deci­sion.

Allen v. United States, No. 01 – 7310

The Supreme Court vacat­ed the death sen­tence of fed­er­al death row inmate Billie J. Allen and remand­ed the case back to the Eighth Circuit for recon­sid­er­a­tion in light of the Court’s recent rul­ing in Ring v. Arizona. In Ring, the Court held that it is uncon­sti­tu­tion­al to have a judge, rather than a jury, decide the crit­i­cal sen­tenc­ing issues in a death penal­ty case (see below). Allen was sen­tenced under fed­er­al law, which pro­vides that the jury deter­mine whether cer­tain aggra­vat­ing fac­tors exist. However, under the fed­er­al sys­tem, the spe­cif­ic cir­cum­stances that the gov­ern­ment intends to prove are not part of the indict­ment, which appears to be required by Ring. (New York Times, 6/​29/​02)

United States v. Bass, No. 01 – 1471

The U.S. Supreme Court reversed a Sixth Circuit opin­ion uphold­ing a fed­er­al court’s deci­sion to grant defen­dant John Bass’s dis­cov­ery motion based on selec­tive pros­e­cu­tion. Bass alleged that the gov­ern­ment was seek­ing the death penal­ty against him because of his race and was grant­ed a motion for dis­cov­ery regard­ing the Government’s cap­i­tal charg­ing prac­tices. The Sixth Circuit found that Bass made a thresh­old show­ing based on nation­al sta­tis­tics that the United States charged blacks with a death-eli­gi­ble offense more than twice as often as it charges whites.” The U.S. Supreme Court, how­ev­er, found that Bass did not make a thresh­old show­ing for a selec­tive pros­e­cu­tion case, which requires evi­dence of a dis­crim­i­na­to­ry effect and dis­crim­i­na­to­ry intent. The Court reversed the Sixth Circuit, hold­ing that a dis­crim­i­na­to­ry effect could not be found because raw sta­tis­tics regard­ing over­all charges say noth­ing about charges brought against sim­i­lar­ly sit­u­at­ed defen­dants.” (U.S. v. Bass, 536 U.S. _​_​_​(2002)).

Ring v. Arizona, No. 01 – 488

On June 24, 2002 the U.S. Supreme Court decid­ed 7 – 2 that it is uncon­sti­tu­tion­al to have a judge, rather than a jury, decide the crit­i­cal sen­tenc­ing issues in a death penal­ty case. The case applies an ear­li­er U.S. Supreme Court case, Apprendi v. New Jersey (500 U.S. 466 (2000)), in which the Court held that a judge could not make find­ings which would increase a defen­dan­t’s sen­tence beyond the max­i­mum, since that amount­ed to an addi­tion­al con­vic­tion. In Arizona and eight oth­er states, judges have decid­ed whether to impose the death penal­ty after a jury has deter­mined guilt. (Associated Press, 1/​11/​02) See also, DPIC’s Web Page, U.S. Supreme Court: Ring v. Arizona.

Atkins v. Virginia, No. 00 – 8452

In a 6 – 3 deci­sion, the Court held that exe­cut­ing those with men­tal retar­da­tion vio­lates the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cru­el and unusu­al pun­ish­ment. (Associated Press, 6/​20/​02)

In 1989, the Court held that exe­cut­ing per­sons with men­tal retar­da­tion was not a vio­la­tion of the Eighth Amendment because a nation­al con­sen­sus” had not devel­oped against exe­cut­ing those with men­tal retar­da­tion. At the time, only two states pro­hib­it­ed such exe­cu­tions. Since then, 16 more states and the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment have enact­ed laws pro­hibit­ing the exe­cu­tion of the men­tal­ly retard­ed. See also, Mental Retardation and the Death Penalty.

Kelly v. South Carolina, No. 00 – 9280

The Court decid­ed 5 – 4 that the South Carolina tri­al court vio­lat­ed Simmons v. South Carolina (512 U.S. 154 (1994)) when it refused to inform Kelly’s sen­tenc­ing jury that he would nev­er be eli­gi­ble for parole if the jury sen­tenced him to life impris­on­ment rather than to death. In Simmons, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that if the state char­ac­ter­izes the defen­dant as dis­play­ing future dan­ger­ous­ness — and the only avail­able alter­na­tive sen­tence to death is life impris­on­ment with­out parole — the jury must be informed of the defen­dan­t’s parole inel­i­gi­bil­i­ty under a life sentence.

In Kelly’s case, the pros­e­cu­tion argued dur­ing the sen­tenc­ing phase that mur­ders will be mur­der­ers” and informed the jury that, when pre­vi­ous­ly incar­cer­at­ed, Kelly had planned escapes from jail. Kelly was sub­se­quent­ly sen­tenced to death. On appeal, Kelly argued that the state raised the issue of future dan­ger­ous­ness when it brought up evi­dence of his escape attempts because a suc­cess­ful escape would imply a risk to the pub­lic. The South Carolina Supreme Court ruled that the evi­dence of the escape attempts is not the kind of future dan­ger­ous­ness con­tem­plat­ed by Simmons. The U.S. Supreme Court reversed that deci­sion and grant­ed Kelly a new sen­tenc­ing tri­al. (Associated Press, 1/​9/​02 and Kelly v. South Carolina, No. 00 – 9280) Read the decision.

McCarver v. North Carolina, No. 00 – 8727

The Court dis­missed the case of Ernest McCarver, a death row inmate in North Carolina with men­tal retar­da­tion. After the Justices had agreed to review McCarver’s case, North Carolina passed a bill pro­hibit­ing the exe­cu­tion of the men­tal­ly retard­ed, ren­der­ing McCarver’s case moot. The Court instead will decide the case of Daryl Atkins, a Virginia death row inmate with men­tal retar­da­tion, to con­sid­er whether exe­cut­ing those with men­tal retar­da­tion offends soci­ety’s evolv­ing stan­dards of decen­cy” and thus vio­lates the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cru­el and unusu­al pun­ish­ment. (Associated Press, 9/​25/​01)

Weston v. United States, No. 01 – 6161

The Court declined to review the case of Russell Weston, the man accused of killing two U.S. Capitol police offi­cers in 1998. Weston was appeal­ing a U.S. Court of Appeals deci­sion uphold­ing the gov­ern­men­t’s efforts to force Weston to take antipsy­chot­ic med­ica­tion. If the treat­ment is suc­cess­ful, he will stand tri­al, and could pos­si­bly face the death penal­ty. (Washington Post, 12/​11/​01)

Mickens v. Taylor, No. 00 – 9285

By a 5 – 4 vote, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the cap­i­tal con­vic­tion of Walter Mickens, who had been rep­re­sent­ed by a lawyer who had also rep­re­sent­ed the vic­tim from Mickens’ crime. The major­i­ty held that this appar­ent con­flict of inter­est did not war­rant a rever­sal with­out a show­ing of an adverse effect” on the rep­re­sen­ta­tion. The dis­sent remarked: Mickens had a con­sti­tu­tion­al right to the ser­vices of an attor­ney devot­ed sole­ly to his inter­ests.” That right was vio­lat­ed.” (New York Times, 3/​28/​02) Mickens is sched­uled for exe­cu­tion on June 12. Read the deci­sion.

Bell v. Cone, No. 01 – 400

The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the death sen­tence of Gary Cone from Tennessee, despite the fact that his lawyer pre­sent­ed no mit­i­gat­ing evi­dence on Cone’s behalf and passed up an oppor­tu­ni­ty to argue for his life. The attor­ney was report­ed­ly suf­fer­ing from men­tal ill­ness and lat­er com­mit­ted sui­cide. The Court ruled 8 – 1 that the attor­ney’s inac­tion did not amount to a com­plete absence of rep­re­sen­ta­tion, and that the state court did not act unrea­son­ably when it held that the attor­ney might have been mak­ing a tac­ti­cal deci­sion in not pre­sent­ing evi­dence. (Bell v. Cone, 535 U.S. _​_​_​(2002); see also Associated Press, May 28, 2002). Read the opinion.

Cockrell v. Burdine, No. 01 – 495

The U.S. Supreme Court declined to decide an appeal by the state of Texas of a Fifth Circuit Court rul­ing that grant­ed Texas death row inmate Calvin Burdine a new tri­al on the basis of inef­fec­tive coun­sel. According to sev­er­al wit­ness­es, Burdine’s attor­ney dozed repeat­ed­ly dur­ing his orig­i­nal tri­al. The Circuit Court held that uncon­scious coun­sel equates to no coun­sel at all,” and that Burdine was there­fore denied coun­sel at a crit­i­cal stage of his tri­al.” (New York Times, June 42002)

Stewart v. Smith, No. 01 – 339

The U.S. Supreme Court in a per curi­am opin­ion reversed the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit which had grant­ed relief to death row inmate Robert Smith. The U.S. Supreme Court held that the Arizona Supreme Court ruled inde­pen­dent­ly of fed­er­al law when it denied Smith’s claim of inef­fec­tive­ness of coun­sel. The Arizona Court held that Smith failed to com­ply with Arizona Rule of Criminal Procedure 32. The U.S. Supreme Court remand­ed the case for fur­ther pro­ceed­ings con­sis­tent with the opinion.