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Ring Decision: Juries, Not Judges, Should have Final say in Sentencing The Associated Press WASHINGTON, June 25 - A Supreme Court decision that juries, rather than judges, must decide whether defendants should be sentenced to death has officials in nine states scrambling to determine the future of their sentencing laws - and of their death row inmates. The 7-2 ruling Monday overturns death penalty laws in five
states, calling into question whether 168 death row inmates in those states
will be put to death. The ruling could also affect some or all death sentences
in four other states, including Florida, where 370 inmates await execution. The high court's decision applies in Arizona, Idaho and
Montana, where a judge decides the sentence, and in Colorado and Nebraska,
where a panel of judges makes the decision. It was not immediately clear
what will happen to the death row inmates in those states. Some lawyers said the inmates' sentences could be commuted to life in prison, as was done when the Supreme Court put a temporary halt to the death penalty in the 1970s. Or they predicted the inmates could be re-sentenced by juries, with some possibly being condemned to death again. Some officials, however, argued that the ruling is not retroactive and does not automatically apply to all death row inmates in their states. The reaction to the case among prosecutors and defense attorneys in Idaho offers some sign of how the ruling may be up for interpretation. The state Attorney General's Office says bonly six of the 22 people on death row come close to qualifying for the ruling. And Deputy Attorney General Michael Henderson said many of the six won't win appeals based on the Supreme Court decision because they were found guilty of aggravating factors when convicted. But public defenders say the ruling may lead all the death sentences in the state to be overturned. In Colorado, where death sentences are imposed by three-judge panels, officials were reviewing the cases of three death row inmates. Peter Weir, executive director of the Colorado District Attorney's Council, said it may take weeks to sort out the impact of the ruling. The three men sentenced to death could end up with life sentences, he said. "We're not conceding that at this point. These three
involved very heinous crimes," Weir said. In Montana, Attorney General Mike McGrath said the decision won't apply to the six inmates on death row in his state because they have exhausted all their appeals. "As I read this opinion, it applies only to cases pending now," he said. "The court did not make this ruling retroactive, and, therefore, it applies to only pending or future cases." But Michael Donahoe and Ed Sheehy, two Montana defense attorneys experienced in handling death penalty cases, said some of the six may be able to convince judges that the decision should be applied to their cases. "It will take other courts to decide if the ruling can apply to any inmates," said Sheehy, a lawyer in Helena. It also remained unclear whether the ruling will have a spillover effect in four other states where juries recommend whether a defendant should receive the death penalty but judges make the final decision: Florida, Alabama, Indiana, and Delaware. Defense attorneys in Florida say the decision could cause
all 370 condemned inmates in the state to have their sentences overturned. But prosecutors and some legislators said only nine cases would be affected - cases in which a judge sentenced an inmate to death after the jury recommended life in prison. In some states juries determine guilt or innocence, but a judge then bases a death sentence on aggravating factors such as the heinous nature of a murder or whether it was committed for monetary gain. Monday's ruling upheld the appeal of Timothy Stuart Ring, who was convicted of killing an armored car driver during a 1994 robbery in Phoenix. Ring challenged his sentence and Arizona's law on grounds
that his constitutional right to a jury was violated when a judge held
a separate hearing after the jury that convicted Ring was dismissed. The judge heard testimony at a sentencing hearing from an accomplice who said Ring planned the robbery and murdered the guard. The judge then determined that the aggravating factors warranted death. "I was essentially given two trials," Ring said in an Associated Press interview earlier this year. "One before a jury and then one before a judge." The Arizona Supreme Court rejected Ring's constitutional challenge last year. The nation's highest court reversed the state court. "The Sixth Amendment jury trial right," Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote in the majority opinion, "does not turn on the relative rationality, fairness or efficiency of potential fact-finders." She was joined in her opinion by an unusual alliance of conservative and liberal justices: Justices John Paul Stevens, Antonin Scalia, Anthony M. Kennedy, David H. Souter and Clarence Thomas. Justice Stephen Breyer wrote a separate opinion in which he agreed with the outcome. Ring's case put the court in an awkward position. The high court had already upheld the constitutionality of Arizona's law in 1990, but that was before its ruling in Apprendi v. New Jersey. Finding the two rulings irreconcilable, the high court took the rare step of overturning one of its own fairly recent decisions. The first decision was written by Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who wrote the dissent to Monday's ruling, in which she predicted that many challenges will fail. "Nonetheless, the need to evaluate these claims will greatly burden the courts in these five states," O'Connor wrote for herself and Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist. Arizona has 129 people on death row, Idaho 21 and Montana
six. Colorado has five, Nebraska seven, Alabama 187, Indiana 39 and Delaware
20. Nationwide, about 3,700 people await execution for crimes committed in the 38 states that allow the death penalty. Monday's ruling was the second major Supreme Court decision in less than a week affecting the ways that states sentence people to death. Last week, the justices divided bitterly in exempting mentally retarded people from execution. None of the cases attacks the basic constitutionality of capital punishment for the general population. The court has also agreed to hear an appeal in the fall from Tennessee death row inmate Abu-Ali Abdur'Rahman. That case could have far-reaching effects if the justices decide to loosen the rules for when condemned inmates can get new evidence before a judge. http://justice.policy.net/proactive/newsroom/release.vtml?id=30062 http://www.ncadp.org/html/june_24.html http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2002/06/25/deathrow/index_np.html?x
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