ll mese scorso la Corte Suprema degli Stati Uniti
aveva accettato di prendere in esame un caso in Arizona, in cui
l�imputato aveva ricorso perch� era stato condannato a morte da un
giudice e non da una giuria. Se nei prossimi giorni la Corte Suprema
dovesse dare ragione a quel condannato a morte, automaticamente altre 800 e
oltre condanne a morte potrebbero essere rimesse in discussioneI
Ariz.
Case Questions Death Penalty
Feb 13
By
JACKIE HALLIFAX
TALLAHASSEE,
Fla. - The fate of nearly 800 death row inmates in Florida and eight
other states may rest on the outcome of a U.S. Supreme Court (news - web
sites) case that could have the most dramatic effect in 30 years on the way
states apply the death penalty.
The
high court agreed last month to hear a case from Arizona that asks whether
a judge instead of a jury can decide whether a convicted killer deserves
the death penalty.
The
court's decision, expected by summer, could affect sentences already handed
down in nine states where judges choose between a death sentence and life
in prison for a convicted killer.
In
Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana and Nebraska, juries have no role in
sentencing those they convict in capital cases. In Florida, Alabama,
Delaware and Indiana, juries make recommendations but judges make the
decision.
"It
goes to the very heart of what we mean by the right to a jury trial, and we
have argued it forever," said Denise Young, a lawyer in Tucson, Ariz.,
who represents death row inmates.
Defenders
of the sentencing laws at issue have argued that judges can be better than
juries at applying the law without passion. Having a judge make the choice
may lead to fewer death sentences, or sentences better able to withstand
scrutiny on appeal, some prosecutors have said.
Florida
leads the nine states with 372 inmates on death row, followed by Alabama
with 184, Arizona with 128 and Colorado with 39.
The
court could rule broadly on whether it is ever appropriate to have a judge
make the final call, or confine its ruling to the situation in Arizona and
the four other states with nearly identical laws.
Since
the Supreme Court agreed on Jan. 11 to hear the challenge to Arizona's law,
it has granted stays of execution to two Florida inmates whose lawyers had
cited the pending Arizona case. That has led some lawyers to suggest that
the Supreme Court believes that Florida's law � and those like it � are
constitutionally suspect, too.
Under
Florida's law, a judge can impose the death penalty even if a jury
recommends a life sentence.
Exactly
what would happen if the death penalty laws in the nine states were
invalidated is not clear. Some lawyers have speculated that the death row
inmates' sentences could be commuted to life in prison. Or the inmates
might be resentenced, with some receiving a death sentence all over again.
The
defendant in the Arizona case is Timothy Ring, who was condemned for the
1994 murder of an armored car driver during a holdup.
His
case could be the biggest challenge to the nation's death penalty laws
since 1972, when the Supreme Court declared that capital punishment had
become too "arbitrary and capricious." The court imposed a
moratorium on capital punishment across the country, leading to some 600
death sentences in dozens of states being reduced to life in prison.
In
1984 the Supreme Court upheld Florida's law against a challenge that
asserted it violates the Sixth Amendment right to trial by jury. In 1990,
the high court upheld Arizona's law against a similar challenge.
But
in June 2000, a Supreme Court decision in an unrelated New Jersey case gave
new hope to death row lawyers.
In
Apprendi v. New Jersey, the justices struck down the state's hate crime law,
ruling that a judge could not use the law to lengthen the sentence of a man
who shot into a black family's home.
To
do so meant the judge was considering facts not put before the jury, and
that violates the Constitution's guarantee of trial by jury, the court
ruled.
|