“Volunteers” and the Need for Court Review

DPIC’s Lethal Injection Page
​“Volunteers” and the Need for Court Review

A sen­tenc­ing that ​“shocks the con­science”

A recent deci­sion by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9^th Circuit under­scored the respon­si­bil­i­ty that all courts, and par­tic­u­lar­ly the fed­er­al courts, have in ensur­ing that con­sti­tu­tion­al prin­ci­ples are upheld.

FACTS

Robert Comer was con­vict­ed of mur­der and oth­er offens­es at a tri­al in Arizona in 1988. He was not in the court­room dur­ing his tri­al. At the sen­tenc­ing phase of his case, he was brought into the court ​“shack­led to a wheel­chair and, except for a cloth draped over his gen­i­tals, he was naked. His body was slumped to one side and his head drooped toward his shoul­der. He had vis­i­ble abra­sions on his body.” The court inquired whether Comer was con­scious and then sen­tenced him to death.

APPEALS

Comer’s con­vic­tion and death sen­tence were upheld by the Arizona courts. He then filed a habeas cor­pus peti­tion in fed­er­al court, but his claims were ini­tial­ly denied. He appealed this deci­sion to the 9^th Circuit, but then wrote to the state of Arizona indi­cat­ing that he no longer want­ed to appeal and that he want­ed to die.

DECISION

The 9^th Circuit con­curred with the low­er court’s opin­ion that Comer’s waiv­er of his right to appeal was com­pe­tent­ly and vol­un­tar­i­ly made. However, the Court said that a waiv­er of appeal must be giv­en height­ened scruti­ny in a death penal­ty case: ​“Especially vital is mean­ing­ful appel­late review of a cap­i­tal defen­dan­t’s habeas peti­tion. ​‘The writ of habeas cor­pus is the fun­da­men­tal instru­ment for safe­guard­ing indi­vid­ual free­dom against arbi­trary and law­less state action.’ ”

The court held that it was required to review Comer’s orig­i­nal claims despite the fact that he want­ed to die because ​“The state should not be able to exe­cute an ille­gal­ly con­vict­ed or sen­tenced per­son.” An inmate should not be allowed to bypass the peo­ple’s inter­est in see­ing that the law is justly administered:

• [A]llowing a defen­dant to arbi­trar­i­ly waive such review, once it has been prop­er­ly ini­ti­at­ed by the defen­dant and the review­ing court has been pre­sent­ed with briefs that demon­strate the defendant’s con­vic­tion or sen­tence may indeed be uncon­sti­tu­tion­al, vio­lates the Eighth Amendment. The defen­dant is not tak­ing his own life, he is coopt­ing the pow­er of the state’s cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment sys­tem to kill — a pow­er that must only be wield­ed in accor­dance with the Constitution’s fun­da­men­tal pro­tec­tions. The people’s inter­est in jus­tice, which forms the basis of the state’s pow­er to exe­cute, should not be so eas­i­ly com­man­deered. The right to die is not syn­ony­mous with the right to kill.

The court then went on to review Comer’s orig­i­nal claim that the man­ner of his sen­tenc­ing, where he was shack­led to a wheel chair, bare­ly con­scious, and almost naked before the court, vio­lat­ed his due process rights under the Fourteenth Amendment. The court found that this process ​“shocks the con­science” and was a ​“severe affront to the dig­ni­ty and deco­rum of the judi­cial pro­ceed­ings.” He was grant­ed a new sen­tenc­ing hear­ing. One judge filed a par­tial dis­sent.

All quo­ta­tions are from the deci­sion: Comer v. Schriro, No. 98 – 99003 (9^th Cir. Sept. 13, 2006).

For more infor­ma­tion on Volunteers, see Time on Death Row. Since the death penal­ty was rein­stat­ed in 1976, about 12% of those exe­cut­ed waived their appeals at the time of their exe­cu­tion. See DPIC’s Execution Database. See also Mental Illness.