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News
Supreme Court News Resources
Supreme Court News Archive from 2001
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- High Court Reviews Death Penalty
WASHINGTON -- As part of its broadest review of the death penalty in years, the Supreme Court asked Monday whether a lawyer once appointed to represent a troubled 17-year-old boy could give his all in the courtroom for his next client -- the boy's accused killer. Walter Mickens Jr. did not know about his attorney's other work, and no one who did know raised an alarm. Lawyers trying to save Mickens from execution discovered the situation years later. (11/6/01, The Daily Camera)
- Justice O'Connor: "Serious Questions" About Death Penalty Fairness
MINNEAPOLIS -- Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor questioned the fairness of the death penalty, saying some death row inmates had inferior representation and may not have had access to DNA testing that could clear them. "If statistics are any indication, the system may well be allowing some innocent defendants to be executed," O'Connor said Monday to the Minnesota Women Lawyers association. (7/3/01, Rocky Mountain News)
- High Court Overturns Sentence
WASHINGTON -- In a prelude to deciding whether the mentally retarded can be executed, the Supreme Court overturned the death sentence of a Texas killer on Monday because the jury lacked clear instructions on how to weigh his mental condition. ... "If you had to predict where the court is, we would hope they're becoming as troubled as a lot of Americans are about how the death penalty is being used in this country," said attorney Richard Kammen of Indianapolis. Kammen is vice president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. (6/5/01, The Daily Camera)
- High Court Hears Arguments on Executing Mentally Retarded
WASHINGTON -- The attorney for Texas death row inmate Johnny Paul Penry asked the Supreme Court to overturn Penry's sentence, contending that the jury in his case was not given a sufficient chance to consider his mental retardation when deciding whether to recommend his execution. ... The Penry hearing took place a day after the justices announced that they will rule on a North Carolina death row inmate's claim that capital punishment for mentally retarded criminals is unconstitutional. (3/28/01, The Daily Camera)
- High Court to Rule on Executions
WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court rejoined the heated national debate over the death penalty, announcing it will decide whether the Constitution's ban on "cruel and unusual punishment" bars execution of mentally retarded people. The justices said they will hear an appeal by North Carolina death-row inmate Ernest McCarver, whose lawyers say he is retarded. The justices halted his execution early this month just hours before he was to have been put to death. ... "There has been a substantial change in American society," his lawyers wrote in his appeal. "The penalty of death is plainly cruel when imposed on those whose culpability is lessened by their inability to reason." (3/27/01, The Daily Camera)
- Justices Rule Jurors Must Know All Facts of Capital Case Sentences
WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court ruled that jurors must be told the full truth when they are deciding whether to sentence a murderer to death or to life in prison. On a 7-2 vote, the court reversed the death penalty for a South Carolina man who was condemned to die by jurors who were confused about the meaning of the phrase "life imprisonment." Before jurors make "the moral judgment" of life or death for a convicted murderer, they "must be told the defendant is ineligible for parole," said Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Tuesday's decision highlights two little-noted trends in capital punishment. (3/21/01, The Daily Camera)
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