Supreme Court Opens 2019 – 2020 Term with Consideration of Death Penalty Cases

The 2019 – 2020 U.S. Supreme Court term opened on October 7 with the Court declin­ing to review chal­lenges to death-penal­ty court deci­sions from a num­ber of states and with the Court hear­ing argu­ment in a Kansas death-penal­ty case rais­ing con­sti­tu­tion­al ques­tions about a defendant’s right to present an insanity defense. 

Among the more notable death penal­ty deci­sions, the Court denied a peti­tion from an Alabama pris­on­er whose death sen­tence result­ed in a judge’s over­ride of a jury’s life ver­dict, a peti­tion from the state of South Carolina chal­leng­ing a grant of fed­er­al habeas relief, and sev­er­al peti­tions from California and Florida pris­on­ers involv­ing the after­math of the Court’s 2016 deci­sion in Hurst v. Florida affirm­ing a cap­i­tal defen­dan­t’s right to a jury deter­mi­na­tion of all facts that could lead to a death sen­tence. In a one-sen­tence state­ment on the denial of review in Anderson v. Florida, Justice Sonia Sotomayor reit­er­at­ed her oppo­si­tion to the Court’s con­tin­ued refusal to review peti­tions that chal­lenge the Florida Supreme Court’s lim­it­ed appli­ca­tion of the Hurst decision.

The death penal­ty case, Kahler v. Kansas was the first case sched­uled for argu­ment in the Court’s 2019 – 20 term. James Kahler (pic­tured) chal­lenged his mur­der con­vic­tion and death sen­tence, argu­ing Kansas law uncon­sti­tu­tion­al­ly denied him the right to assert an insan­i­ty defense. Kahler suf­fered from severe depres­sion and ​“obses­sive-com­pul­sive, bor­der­line, para­noid, and nar­cis­sis­tic per­son­al­i­ty ten­den­cies” when he killed four of his fam­i­ly mem­bers in 2009. At tri­al, he pre­sent­ed men­tal health tes­ti­mo­ny that, as a result of his severe depres­sion, he was in a dis­so­cia­tive state and could not appre­ci­ate the wrong­ful­ness of his actions at the time of the mur­ders. The jury was allowed to con­sid­er evi­dence of Kahler’s men­tal ill­ness in decid­ing whether he could form the intent to com­mit first-degree murder. 

All but five states — Kansas, Alaska, Idaho, Montana, and Utah — pro­vide for an insan­i­ty defense. Kansas pros­e­cu­tors argued that such a defense is not con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly com­pul­so­ry and that the fed­er­al con­sti­tu­tion man­dates only that the jury be able to con­sid­er whether the defen­dant has the req­ui­site men­tal state to be con­vict­ed of murder.

The ques­tion­ing at oral argu­ment sig­naled divi­sion among the Justices, but sug­gest­ed a major­i­ty of the Court had not been per­suad­ed by the defense argu­ments. Justice Stephen Breyer raised two hypo­thet­i­cal sit­u­a­tions, one in which a per­son killed some­one believ­ing the vic­tim was a dog, the oth­er in which they killed some­one believ­ing that the dog told them to kill the vic­tim. He asked, ​“Why does Kansas say one is guilty, the oth­er is not guilty?” Several Justices inquired about the scope and prac­ti­cal effect of a rul­ing for the defense in the case. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Elena Kagan and Samuel Alito expressed skep­ti­cism as to whether Kahler would have ben­e­fit­ed from an insan­i­ty defense, even if it had been available. 

Prior to the Kahler argu­ment, the Court released its ​“first-Monday-in-October” list of cas­es decid­ed since the close of the 2018 – 2019 term. In Woodward v. Alabama, the Court declined to review the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of Alabama’s since-repealed statute that per­mit­ted the tri­al judge to impose the death penal­ty despite a jury vote in favor of life. A Montgomery, Alabama jury had con­vict­ed Mario Woodward (pic­tured), an African-American defen­dant, of killing a white police offi­cer dur­ing a traf­fic stop, but had vot­ed 8 – 4 to sen­tence him to life. The tri­al judge over­rode the jury and imposed the death penal­ty. The Court also let stand a unan­i­mous South Carolina fed­er­al appeals court deci­sion over­turn­ing the death sen­tence imposed on Charles Williams. The appeals court had found Williams’ tri­al coun­sel inef­fec­tive for fail­ing to inves­ti­gate and present avail­able mit­i­gat­ing evi­dence, includ­ing that Williams had severe func­tion­al impair­ments and brain dam­age caused by Fetal Alcohol Syndrome.

Over the last sev­er­al years, the Court has denied numer­ous cer­tio­rari peti­tions in death penal­ty cas­es involv­ing the appli­ca­tion of its 2016 Hurst deci­sion. While more than 350 death sen­tences were imposed under Florida’s pri­or uncon­sti­tu­tion­al death-sen­tenc­ing statute, its state courts have declined to grant new sen­tenc­ing hear­ings to pris­on­ers in more than half of the cas­es. The Court again declined to take up the issue In Anderson, over a dis­sent by Justice Sotomayor.

Court watch­ers have not­ed the impor­tance of Sotomayor’s state­ments in death penal­ty cas­es. A recent New York Times arti­cle exam­ined the Justice’s record in death penal­ty cas­es, not­ing that she is often alone in ​“bear­ing wit­ness” to what she per­ceives as mis­car­riages of jus­tice. University of Texas law pro­fes­sor Jordan M. Steiker char­ac­ter­ized Sotomayor’s state­ments as ​“car­ry­ing for­ward the tra­di­tion of Justices Brennan and Marshall.” Professor Steiker con­clud­ed that ​“Justice Sotomayor is speak­ing to insti­tu­tion­al actors — judges, pros­e­cu­tors, defense lawyers — to make clear that the court, or least some por­tion of it, is keen­ly aware of prob­lems that it is not present­ly able to correct.”