Supreme Court to Consider Whether Arizona Can Deny Death-Row Prisoner Review of Claim that Jury Was Misled About His Parole Eligibility

The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to review the case of an Arizona death-row pris­on­er whose sen­tence was upheld by the state’s appel­late courts even though his tri­al judge uncon­sti­tu­tion­al­ly refused to inform the jury that he would be inel­i­gi­ble for parole if sen­tenced to life in prison. In an order issued March 28, 2021, the Court grant­ed John Montenegro Cruz​’s peti­tion to hear his case, but lim­it­ed its review to the ques­tion of whether the pro­ce­dur­al rule applied by the Arizona courts to refuse to con­sid­er Cruz’s claim is grounds to also bar him from receiv­ing review of his claim in federal court.

In 2016, the Supreme Court found that Arizona had been mis­ap­ply­ing fed­er­al con­sti­tu­tion­al law by refus­ing to instruct juries on cap­i­tal defen­dants’ parole inel­i­gi­bil­i­ty. When Cruz asked for his con­vic­tion to be over­turned based on this deci­sion, the state argued that Cruz’s con­vic­tion should stand because the Supreme Court’s deci­sion did not con­sti­tute a sig­nif­i­cant change of law under Arizona rules. Cruz is chal­leng­ing the Arizona Supreme Court’s deci­sion deny­ing him relief.

John Montenegro Cruz was sen­tenced to death in 2005 for killing a police offi­cer. The state chal­lenged Cruz’s expert wit­ness who tes­ti­fied that Cruz was unlike­ly to be dan­ger­ous in a prison envi­ron­ment. The tri­al court denied Cruz’s requests to instruct the jury that he was parole inel­i­gi­ble and his request to have the chair­man of the Arizona Board of Executive Clemency tes­ti­fy that he was parole inel­i­gi­ble. Instead, the court instruct­ed the jury that the alter­na­tive to a death sen­tence was sen­tenc­ing Cruz to “[l]ife impris­on­ment with a pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole or release from impris­on­ment” after 25 years. Jurors were not instruct­ed that Arizona law exclud­ed from parole eli­gi­bil­i­ty those who were sen­tenced to 25 years to life after 1994. After sen­tenc­ing Cruz to death, the foreper­son of the jury stat­ed that a life with­out parole option would have made a dif­fer­ence. The foreper­son said: ​“Many of us would rather have vot­ed for life if there was one mit­i­gat­ing cir­cum­stance that war­rant­ed it. In our minds there wasn’t. We were not giv­en an option to vote for life in prison with­out the pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole.”

In 1994, the Supreme Court held in Simmons v. South Carolina that when future dan­ger­ous­ness is at issue in a cap­i­tal case, a defen­dant has a due process right to inform jurors that he will not be parole eli­gi­ble if the jury votes against death. Despite Simmons, the Arizona Supreme Court con­sis­tent­ly ruled that Arizona cap­i­tal defen­dants were not enti­tled to a jury instruc­tion about defen­dants’ parole inel­i­gi­bil­i­ty. The court rea­soned that all defen­dants could receive exec­u­tive clemen­cy, so there was still a pos­si­bil­i­ty of release for parole inel­i­gi­ble pris­on­ers. In 2016, the U.S. Supreme Court rec­og­nized the uncon­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of Arizona’s past prac­tice, sum­mar­i­ly revers­ing an Arizona Supreme Court deci­sion. In Lynch v. Arizona, the Court made clear that just like the defen­dant in Simmons, Arizona defen­dants con­vict­ed of cap­i­tal offens­es were ​“inel­i­gi­ble for parole under state law.” 

Cruz raised the jury instruc­tion issue on direct appeal, but the Arizona Supreme Court decid­ed that Simmons did not apply. After the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2016 Lynch deci­sion, Cruz sought state post-con­vic­tion relief. Cruz argued that he was enti­tled to resen­tenc­ing based on fed­er­al prin­ci­ples about when a case is applied retroac­tive­ly and based on an Arizona rule of crim­i­nal pro­ce­dure that allows post-con­vic­tion relief when ​“there has been a sig­nif­i­cant change in the law that, if applic­a­ble to the defendant’s case, would prob­a­bly over­turn the defendant’s judg­ment or sen­tence.” The Arizona Supreme Court denied post-con­vic­tion relief, rely­ing on the state crim­i­nal pro­ce­dure rule and not address­ing Cruz’s fed­er­al retroactivity arguments.

LatinoJustice PRLDEF and a group of habeas cor­pus schol­ars filed ami­cus briefs in sup­port of the Court grant­i­ng cer­tio­rari review. LatinoJustice’s brief focused on the invid­i­ous­ness of juror assump­tions about the future dan­ger­ous­ness of defen­dants of col­or, explain­ing that “[d]ecades of stud­ies have shown that juries — even mock juries in con­trolled exper­i­ments— per­ceive Black defen­dants as more dan­ger­ous than white ones, and that harsh­er sen­tences are the result. More recent research has demon­strat­ed wide­spread belief that Latinos, too, are more prone to crime and vio­lence than whites.” This poten­tial for bias to influ­ence jury deci­sion­mak­ing ren­ders accu­rate instruc­tions about future dan­ger­ous­ness even more impor­tant for Black and Latino defendants.

The habeas schol­ars’ ami­cus brief high­light­ed the fed­er­al con­sti­tu­tion­al issues pre­sent­ed by Arizona’s deci­sion. The law pro­fes­sors argued that because Arizona refused to apply estab­lished law, it is now claim­ing that the U.S. Supreme Court’s cor­rec­tion of its refusal was not sig­nif­i­cant enough to grant relief to defen­dants who were uncon­sti­tu­tion­al­ly sen­tenced to death. The schol­ars char­ac­ter­ized the sit­u­a­tion as a ​“reme­di­al catch-22” that would effec­tive­ly reward Arizona courts for pri­or bad behavior.

On March 28, 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court grant­ed cer­tio­rari review, nar­row­ing its review of the case to focus on whether Arizona’s reliance on a state rule of crim­i­nal pro­ce­dure ​“is an ade­quate and inde­pen­dent state-law ground for [its] judg­ment.” The Court has not yet set a date for oral argument.

Cruz’s case joins two oth­er Arizona death penal­ty cas­es that are pend­ing before the U.S. Supreme Court. The con­sol­i­dat­ed cas­es of Shinn v. Ramirez and Jones involve Arizona’s efforts to lim­it the evi­dence fed­er­al habeas cor­pus courts may con­sid­er in sup­port of the death-row pris­on­ers’ claims that they were pro­vid­ed inef­fec­tive rep­re­sen­ta­tion at both the tri­al and state post-con­vic­tion stages of their cas­es. The cas­es were argued in December 2021, but the Court has yet to issue a decision.