Further reversal for US death penalty

From Patrick Smyth, Washington Correspondent

   US: The United States Supreme Court yesterday overturned death sentences on at least 150 convicted killers in a ruling that judge-imposed sentences represented a denial of a constitutional right to jury trial.

 The 7-2 decision, by an alliance of conservative and liberal members of the court, is the second major reversal of the death penalty in two weeks.

 Last week the court ruled against the execution of the mentally retarded.

 Yesterday's ruling, arising from an Arizona case, will immediately apply in that state and in Idaho and Montana, where a single judge decides the sentence.

 It will also apply immediately in Colorado and Nebraska, where a panel of judges makes the sentencing decision, while the effect of the ruling on states where juries make a recommendation is unclear.

 The decision does not impinge on the basic constitutionality of the death penalty.

 While the decision was welcomed by civil liberties groups it is seen as less significant for the campaign against the death penalty than last week's - some lawyers say that states may simply put those affected through a re-sentencing process and do not have to limit the scope of application of the death penalty.

 Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, writing for the majority, said the court's ruling in a case called Apprendi v. New Jersey cannot be reconciled with the death penalty sentencing laws in Arizona, where the judge was allowed, after the dismissal of a jury, to take evidence of aggravating circumstances to determine whether the death penalty should be applied.

 The Apprendi case concerned a judge's ability to lengthen a sentence by two years if a crime was determined to be a hate crime. The Supreme Court struck down that sentencing law.

 "The right to trial by jury guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment would be senselessly diminished if it encompassed the fact-finding necessary to increase a defendant's sentence by two years, but not the fact-finding necessary to put him to death," Justice Ginsburg wrote. "We hold that the Sixth Amendment applies to both."

 "I was essentially given two trials," Timothy Ring, who was been convicted of killing an armoured car driver during a 1994 robbery in Phoenix, told the Associated Press earlier this year. "One before a jury and then one before a judge."

 The judge in the case 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.

 Nationwide, about 3,700 people await execution for crimes committed in the 38 states that allow the death penalty.   

US ruling may save 800 on Death Row

By Rupert Cornwell in Washington

25 June 2002

The US Supreme Court threw out a lifeline to 168 convicted murderers facing execution yesterday, ruling that only juries and not judges should decide whether a defendant should be sentenced to death. Up to 800 Death Row cases may eventually be overturned.

The 7-2 decision, handed down by an unusual coalition of conservative and liberal justices, will affect at least five, and perhaps as many as nine, of the 38 states which apply capital punishment. Its retroactive nature means that any inmate sent to Death Row by a judge or a panel of judges will have that sentence overturned.

 The ruling is based on the Supreme Court's belief that any sentence imposed by a judge violates a defendant's constitutional right to a trial by jury. The jury, and the jury alone, had to consider all the factors which might lead to a a death sentence.

 In most US states, the jury deliberates twice in a capital case, once to determine guilt, then to decide whether a convicted individual should be sentenced to a long term or to death. But in Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana and Nebraska, a single judge or a panel of judges makes the second decision.

 This means 168 people condemned to death in these five states will have their sentences reconsidered. It was not immediately clear whether yesterday's ruling would affect 629 more people on Death Row in four other states � Florida, Alabama, Indiana and Delaware � where the jury recommends life or death, and the final decision is left to the judge.

 If so, the consequences could be momentous. Only Texas and California have more people on Death Row than Florida. If death sentences in all nine states are subjected to the new ruling, almost 800 murderers � more than a fifth of the entire US population on Death Row of 3,700 � could be given a new sentencing trial, or even see their sentences commuted.

 Of itself, the new ruling does not address the constitutionality of the death penalty and there is no guarantee it will lead to a reduction in death sentences once jury sentencing becomes the norm.