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| Supreme Court Cases |
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Roper v. Simmons,
No. 03-633 (U.S., March 1, 2005): Winner!!! Court overrules precedent and decides that execution of a person who was under the age of eighteen at the time the crime was committed violates the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. The courageous Supreme Court of Missouri is affirmed and kudos to the "show me" state for the plucky decision that forced the issue. Scalia delivers a particularly acerbic, if overdone, dissent. OCDW notes that the Court acted too late to save Oklahomans Sean Sellers and Scott Hain.
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Nelson v. Campbell,
No.03-6821 (U.S., May 24, 2004): 42 U.S.C. sec. 1983 is an appropriate vehicle to seek injunction on Eighth Amendment claim involving lethal injection.
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Bradshaw v. Stumpf,
No. 04-637 (U.S., June 13, 2005): Guilty plea to a murder charge in a state capital murder case ends up with the death penalty imposed. The rub here is that there were two alleged murderers and the State argued in the separate prosecutions of the two defendants that each was the trigger man--very inconsistent theories. The Court held that the State's actions did not invalidate the guilty plea, but may have impacted the imposition of the death penalty and remanded to the Sixth Circuit to flesh out this issue.
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Oregon v. Guzek,
No. 04-928 (U.S., February 22, 2006): The Court delivers a death blow to the right of a defendant in a capital case to argue "residual doubt" concerning guilt as a mitigating factor during the penalty phase. The holding is phrased as follows: The Constitution does not prohibit a State from limiting the innocence-related evidence a capital defendant can introduce at a sentencing proceeding to the evidence introduced at the original trial. Guzek attempted to call an alibi witness at his upcoming sentencing and the Court held the State could prohibit such evidence consistent with the Eighth Amendment.
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Hill v. McDonough,
No. 05-8794 (U.S., June 12, 2006): Death Penalty: Many death row inmates around the country have been challenging lethal injection as a cruel and unusual method of execution. In order to avoid the stringent barriers involved with successive habeas petitions, the inmates have been filing challenges under 42 U.S.C. 1983, alleging a deprivation of civil rights. In this case, the Supreme Court holds that the civil rights action is a proper way to challenge the execution method, although filing such an action does not automatically result in a stay of execution.
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Kansas v. Marsh,
No. 04-1170 (U.S., June 26, 2006): Death Penalty: Kansas death penalty statutes mandate that when aggravating circumstances are not outweighed by mitigating circumstances the death penalty must be imposed; or put another way, if the jury finds that the aggravating and mitigating circumstances are in equipoise, it must impose death. The Court held that this statute was constitutional. Particularly interesting is Justice Scalia's concurring opinion in which he addresses directly many of the anti-death penalty arguments in his inimitable style.
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Baze v. Rees
No. 07-5439 (U.S., April 16, 2008): Death Penalty; Supreme Court Cases: This is the much anticipated lethal injection case, and it is one of the most fractured decisions in recent memory. The bottom line is that the Kentucky protocol is accepted and executions will resume, although no view garnered five votes on the Court. Justices Roberts, Kennedy and Alito formed a three-member plurality holding that the Kentucky protocol satisfied the Eighth Amendment. Justice Stevens concluded that the decision will engender even more litigation but the protocol does not violate the Eighty Amendment. Justices Thomas and Scalia criticized the plurality's legal standard, arguing that the Eighth Amendment prohibits only those methods deliberately designed to inflict pain. Justice Breyer concluded that there are no grounds to conclude that the Kentucky protocol creates a significant risk of unnecessary suffering. Justices Souter and Ginsburg dissented, noting that Kentucky lacks basic safeguards to ensure that the condemned is unconscious before injection of the second and third drugs. They would vacate the judgment below and remand with "instructions to consider whether Kentucky's omission of those safeguards poses an untoward, readily avoidable risk of inflicting severe and unnecessary pain."
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Kennedy v. Louisiana,
No. 07-343 (U.S., June 25, 2008): Death Penalty; Supreme Court Cases: The Eighth Amendment bars Louisiana from imposing the death penalty for the rape of a child where the crime did not result, and was not intended to result, in the victim's death.
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