U.S. Supreme Court Reverses Arizona Death Sentence After Jury Not Told of Defendant’s Ineligibility for Parole

The U.S. Supreme Court has over­turned a death sen­tence imposed on Shawn Patrick Lynch by an Arizona jury that had not been told he would have been inel­i­gi­ble for parole if jurors sen­tenced to him to life impris­on­ment. In a 6 – 2 deci­sion on May 31, the Court agreed to review Lynch’s case, vacat­ed the judg­ment of the Arizona Supreme Court, and sum­mar­i­ly reversed Lynch’s death sentence. 

Under Arizona law, the only sen­tences the jury could impose in Lynch’s case were life with­out pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole or the death penal­ty. The pros­e­cu­tion in the case pre­sent­ed evi­dence and argu­ment to the jury sug­gest­ing that Lynch would pose a future dan­ger to soci­ety unless he were sen­tenced to death. At the same time, it filed a motion, which the tri­al judge grant­ed, to pre­vent Lynch’s lawyer from inform­ing the jury that its life sen­tenc­ing option car­ried no pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole. The tri­al court also did not instruct the jury that Lynch would be inel­i­gi­ble for parole if sen­tenced to life. The Supreme Court held that this vio­lat­ed Lynch’s right to due process, as set forth in its 1994 deci­sion in Simmons v. South Carolina.

Simmons ruled that a cap­i­tal defen­dant is enti­tled to inform the jury of his parole inel­i­gi­bil­i­ty when­ev­er his future dan­ger­ous­ness is at issue and the only sen­tenc­ing alter­na­tives avail­able to the jury are death or life impris­on­ment with­out pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole. This was Lynch’s third penal­ty phase. In his first penal­ty tri­al, the jury was unable to reach a unan­i­mous ver­dict and the court declared a penal­ty mis­tri­al. Lynch was again sen­tenced to death at his sec­ond penal­ty tri­al, but that sen­tence was over­turned because of mis­con­duct by pros­e­cu­tor Juan Martinez, who had mis­rep­re­sent­ed to the jury that the aggra­vat­ing fac­tor ​“exces­sive­ly cru­el, heinous or depraved” con­sti­tut­ed three sep­a­rate aggravating circumstances. 

In his lat­est resen­tenc­ing tri­al in 2012, the Arizona Supreme Court found that Martinez had ​“dis­turbing­ly made a num­ber of inap­pro­pri­ate com­ments” and had engaged in ​“some instances” of mis­con­duct. However, it ruled that the ​“pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct … was not so pro­nounced or sus­tained as to require a new sentencing trial.” 

Lynch’s case now returns to state court for a fourth sentencing trial.