Supreme Court 2007

Supreme Court and the Death Penalty
The U.S. Supreme Court will be hear­ing four death penal­ty cas­es in January 2007:

SCHRIRO V. LANDRIGAN, No. 05 – 1575
This Arizona case will be argued on January 9. The Court will decide whether defense coun­sel has a duty to devel­op and offer evi­dence favor­able to the client in a death penal­ty case when the client active­ly oppos­es pre­sen­ta­tion of such mit­i­gat­ing evi­dence. On a habeas cor­pus peti­tion, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9^th Circuit (en banc) held that Landrigan had received inef­fec­tive rep­re­sen­ta­tion and was enti­tled to a new sen­tenc­ing hear­ing.

ABDUL-KABIR V. QUARTERMAN, No. 05 – 11284, and BREWER V. QUARTERMAN, No. 05 – 11287
These two cas­es have been con­sol­i­dat­ed and will be argued on January 17. The basic ques­tion in both cas­es is whether Texas’ for­mer jury instruc­tions allowed the jury to con­sid­er the full range of mit­i­gat­ing evi­dence that a defen­dant might offer, espe­cial­ly regard­ing men­tal impair­ments. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit denied relief to both defen­dants.

SMITH V. TEXAS, No. 05 – 11304
This case will be argued on the same day as the con­sol­i­dat­ed cas­es above, January 17. The issue again involves Texas’ for­mer jury instruc­tions. The under­ly­ing issue in this case had been decid­ed ear­li­er by the U.S. Supreme Court in favor of the defen­dant, LaRoyce Smith, in 2004 and remand­ed back to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals for con­sid­er­a­tion of a new sen­tence. The Texas court denied Smith a resen­tenc­ing because it said he had not shown ​“egre­gious harm” to his fair tri­al rights. The Supreme Court will decide whether the Texas court applied the prop­er stan­dard of review.

The Supreme Court has already decid­ed one cap­i­tal case this term:
AYERS V. BELMONTES, No. 05 – 493
Argued Oct. 3, 2006; Decided Nov. 13, 2006
The Court upheld California’s death penal­ty law in a 5 – 4 deci­sion. The major­i­ty held that the state’s law allowed the jury to con­sid­er all appro­pri­ate mit­i­gat­ing evi­dence, there­by over­turn­ing a rul­ing to the con­trary by the 9^th Circuit.

The Court’s deci­sion in LAWRENCE V. FLORIDA, No. 05 – 8820, argued Oct. 31, 2006, is pend­ing.

On December 7, the Court accept­ed a new cap­i­tal case, ROPER V. WEAVER, No. 06 – 313, which will exam­ine the stan­dards for when a pros­e­cu­tor’s argu­ment at the penal­ty phase is unfair­ly inflam­ma­to­ry.

For more infor­ma­tion on all of these cas­es, see Supreme Court.