---
title: 'Supreme Court Justices Raise Issue of Time on Death Row'
description: 'The U.S. Supreme Court upheld California’s death penalty law in a 5-4 decision on Nov. 13 in Ayers v. Belmontes. The majority held that the state’s law…'
canonical: 'https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/supreme-court-justices-raise-issue-of-time-on-death-row'
section: news
date: '2006-11-14T01:00:08-05:00'
updated: '2025-03-14T14:24:29-04:00'
source: 'Death Penalty Information Center'
---

The U.S. Supreme Court upheld California's death penalty law in a 5-4 decision on Nov. 13 in **Ayers v. Belmontes**. The majority held that the state's law allowed the jury to consider all appropriate mitigating evidence. The decision reversed the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, which had overturned Belmontes death sentence. The dissent, consisting of Justices Stephens, Breyer, Ginsburg and Souter, however, disagreed, contending that the jury would have to disregard the judge's instructions in order to consider mitigating evidence about the defendant's future prospects for reform. The dissent argued for a more appropriate balancing of state's need for its law to be carried out with the defendant's right to have all the evidence that might save his life considered by the jury. The dissent stated that the state's need for an execution was greatly diminished by the fact that this case was now 25 years old, and, hence, the people would gain little by having an execution carried out now, whereas the defendant had everything to lose by an unfair decision:

The Court today heaps speculation on speculation to  
 reach the strange conclusion, out of step with our case law,  
 that a properly instructed jury disregarded its instructions  
 and considered evidence that fell outside the narrow confines  
 of factor (k). Holding to the contrary, the Court  
 insists, would reduce two days of sentencing testimony to  
 “a virtual charade,”—but in so concluding the Court necessarily finds  
 that the judge’s instructions were themselves such a “charade  
 ” that the jury paid them no heed. I simply cannot  
 believe that the jurors took it upon themselves to consider  
 testimony they were all but told they were forbidden from  
 considering; in my view, they must at the very least have  
 been confused as to whether the evidence could appropriately  
 be considered. That confusion has created a risk of  
 error sufficient to warrant relief for a man who has spent  
 more than half his life on death row. Cf. Lackey v. Texas,  
 514 U. S. 1045 (1995) (STEVENS, J., respecting denial of  
 certiorari). The incremental value to California of carrying  
 out a death sentence at this late date is far outweighed  
 by the interest in maintaining confidence in the fairness of  
 any proceeding that results in a State’s decision to take  
 the life of one of its citizens. See Gardner v. Florida, 430  
 U. S. 349, 358 (1977) (plurality opinion).

(Ayers v. Belmontes, No. 05-493, Nov. 13, 2006) (Stephens, J., dissenting) (emphasis added). See [**Time on Death Row**](/article.php?&did=1397).