The United States Supreme Court over­turned the death sen­tences of three Texas inmates in sep­a­rate 5 – 4 rul­ings today. In all three cas­es, the juries had been pre­vent­ed by the Texas statute (since changed) from ful­ly con­sid­er­ing the mit­i­gat­ing evi­dence pre­sent­ed by the defen­dants, evi­dence such as their low IQ or oth­er men­tal defi­cien­cies. In Smith v. Texas (No. 05 – 11304), the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals had recon­sid­ered Smith’s death sen­tence after the case had been pre­vi­ous­ly reviewed and sent back by the U.S. Supreme Court. The Texas court held that any error on the mit­i­ga­tion issue was harm­less and there­fore did not require a rever­sal. The Supreme Court reject­ed that analy­sis and remand­ed the case for a new sentencing hearing.

In Abdul-Kabir v. Quarterman (No. 05 – 11284) and Brewer v. Quarterman (No. 05 – 11287), the tri­al juries had like­wise been pre­vent­ed from ful­ly con­sid­er­ing the defen­dants’ mit­i­gat­ing evi­dence. Their death sen­tences were affirmed by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals and by low­er fed­er­al courts on habeas cor­pus review. Today, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, hold­ing that it had not prop­er­ly applied the hold­ings of pri­or cas­es in which the High Court made it clear that ​“sen­tenc­ing juries must be able to give mean­ing­ful con­sid­er­a­tion and effect to all mit­i­gat­ing evi­dence that might pro­vide a basis for refus­ing to impose the death penal­ty on a par­tic­u­lar indi­vid­ual, notwith­stand­ing the sever­i­ty of his crime or his poten­tial to com­mit sim­i­lar offens­es in the future.” (Abdul-Kabir).

The Justices for the major­i­ty and in dis­sent in all three cas­es were the same. There are 47 remain­ing Texas death row inmates who were sen­tenced under the same flawed statute, which was amend­ed in 1991. (Lyle Denniston, sco​tus​blog​.com, April 25, 2007; Associated Press, April 25, 2007). See Supreme Court.

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