|
|
News
Supreme Court News Resources
Supreme Court News Stories from 2002
- About Broken Links
- High Court Expands Death Penalty Review
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court broadened its review of the death penalty Monday, agreeing to consider when death row inmates with bad lawyers deserve a second chance. Justices will review the case of a man who claims he was unfairly sentenced after being convicted of drowning an elderly woman in her bathtub. The court could use the case of Maryland death row inmate Kevin Wiggins to clarify the threshold for ineffective counsel claims in capital cases. The subject of bad lawyering has bothered some court members in recent years, and two justices publicly criticized the quality of death penalty lawyers. (11/18/02, CNN.com)
- Supreme Court Blocks Mentally-ill Man's Execution
HUNTSVILLE, Texas (AP) -- The Supreme Court Wednesday night blocked the execution of a convicted killer following a last-minute appeal that questioned his mental competency. The appeal was received at 5:59 p.m., one minute before James Colburn could have been taken from his cell and strapped to the death chamber gurney, officials said. (11/6/02, CNN.com)
- Supreme Court Allows Texas Execution of Mentally Ill Man
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The U.S. Supreme Court has refused to block the Wednesday execution of Texas man diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic. ... The Supreme Court in June ruled executing the mentally retarded was constitutionally "cruel and unusual punishment." But justices so far have not imposed complete protection from the death penalty for those with mental problems such as Colburn's. (11/5/02, CNN.com)
- Supreme Court Won't Reconsider Child Death Sentences
WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court revealed deep divisions over the death penalty Monday as justices used unusually strong language regarding the constitutionality of executing people who killed when they were juveniles and allowing exceedingly long waits on death row. The high court declined to hear two capital murder cases: one for a man given the death penalty for a killing committed when he was 17 and the other for a man who has spent nearly three decades waiting to die. (10/22/02, The Daily Camera)
- Supreme Court Tinkering with Death Penalty
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court added another death penalty case and a mob murder conviction to its calendar for the coming term on Tuesday, continuing its review of the way the death penalty is carried out. The court now has four death row cases to consider when it opens a new term next week. All focus on the mechanics of imposing the death penalty, not major constitutional issues. (10/1/02, CNN.com)
- Justices: High Court Should Consider Ending Execution of Teen Killers
WASHINGTON (AP) -- In an unusual public statement about the death penalty, three Supreme Court justices said the time is right to consider abolishing capital punishment for killers who committed their crimes as minors. Justices John Paul Stevens, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer could not persuade the rest of the court to delay Wednesday's execution of a Texas inmate for a killing committed when he was 17. Toronto Patterson had asked the high court to delay his execution and consider whether such executions are unconstitutionally cruel and unusual punishment. (8/29/02, CNN.com)
- Supreme Court: Only Juries Can Impose Death Penalty
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Supreme Court Monday ruled 7-2 that it is unconstitutional for judges rather than juries to decide whether to impose the death penalty in capital cases. The ruling will require reconsideration of the death penalties of more than 100 death row inmates in five states where a judge makes the final decision. In a case from Arizona, the Supreme Court majority declared it is a violation of the right to trial by jury for a judge to impose the sentence, even where a jury has determined guilt. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg delivered the opinion, which attracted the support of the court's most liberal and most conservative justices. (6/24/02, CNN.com)
- Supreme Court Bars Execution of Retarded People
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6-3 Thursday that executions of mentally retarded criminals are "cruel and unusual punishment," violating the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution. The ruling is a victory for opponents of the death penalty ... The majority's view reflects changes in public attitudes on the issue since the court declared such executions constitutional in 1989. Then, only two states that used capital punishment outlawed the practice for the retarded. Now, 18 states prohibit it. (6/20/02, CNN.com)
- Death Row Inmate Whose Lawyer Slept Deserves New Trial
WASHINGTON -- A Texas Death Row inmate whose lawyer slept for long portions of his murder trial will either win freedom or a new trial, after the Supreme Court refused to intervene Monday. ... The Supreme Court has not yet taken a case that asks the broader question of what to do about underprepared or overworked death penalty lawyers. Away from the court, two justices have expressed strong reservations about the quality of legal help that some inmates receive. (6/3/02, The Daily Camera)
- Supreme Court Aids Death Row Inmate
WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court delivered a victory Monday to a death row inmate who said his lawyer snoozed through much of his trial, a possible prelude to broader examination of the quality of legal help available to poor defendants facing the death penalty. ... While not a ruling on the merits of Burdine's claim, the high court's action may be a sign that some justices remain attuned to longstanding complaints that overworked or underprepared lawyers are too often assigned to represent murder suspects too poor to hire a lawyer of their choice. ... Burdine's victory Monday is not necessarily encouraging for other defendants in the long term, said Stephen Bright, a death penalty opponent at the Southern Center for Human Rights. (6/4/02, The Daily Camera)
- High Court Limits Appeals About Bad Counsel
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- In an 8-1 vote Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the death sentence of a convicted murderer in Tennessee who had complained of poor legal representation. Death penalty opponents had watched the case of Tennessee convict Gary Cone closely, hoping the justices would sympathize with Cone's complaints about his lawyer's tactics and his mental stability. Cone's lawyer, John Dice, called no defense witnesses during his trial and waived making a final argument at sentencing. (5/28/02, CNN.com)
- Supreme Court Considers Whether Juries Must Determine Death Sentences
WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court waded deeper into the death penalty debate Monday with a case that could overturn 800 death sentences nationally and another case seeking extra appeals for the condemned. Death sentences in nine states could be affected by the court's ruling in the case of Timothy Stuart Ring, convicted of killing of an armored car driver during a robbery eight years ago. The court is expected to decide by summer whether a defendant's constitutional right to a jury trial means that only a jury can make the crucial determinations that result in a death sentence. Currently, although juries are responsible for deciding guilt or innocence, judges decide the sentence in Arizona and eight other states. (4/22/02, The Daily Camera)
- Supreme Court May Open Courts to More Death Row Appeals
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court agreed Monday to use a Tennessee killer's death sentence to look at the way capital punishment is applied, and whether to allow more appeals in questionable cases. ... His case brought the court back to a subject that has troubled some of the justices: whether poor people accused of murder are being adequately represented. ... The latest case, which will be heard in the court's term that begins next fall, illustrates the court's current interest in capital cases. (4/22/02, CNN.com) - Justices Mull Executing Mentally Retarded
WASHINGTON -- When the Supreme Court last considered executions of the mentally retarded, two states banned the practice. Now, 18 states prohibit it, and that math will weigh on the court as it reconsiders the issue and the fate of a condemned man with an IQ of 59. The court debated Wednesday how much public standards have changed since 1989, when the court upheld those executions on a 5-4 vote. Justice Sandra Day O'Connor wrote then that there was "insufficient evidence of a national consensus" against the executions to determine that they were unconstitutionally cruel and unusual punishment. (2/21/02, The Daily Camera)
- Supreme Court Stays Texas Execution
LIVINGSTON, Texas -- The U.S. Supreme Court granted a stay of execution Wednesday to a black man who contends prosecutors deliberately kept blacks off the jury at his murder trial in 1986. Justice Antonin Scalia granted the stay one day before Thomas Miller-El, 50, was set to die by injection. The case could be used by the Supreme Court to clarify what evidence a court can consider when reviewing a claim that a jury was racially stacked. (2/21/02, The Daily Camera)
- Justices to Hear TX Death Row Inmate's Claim of Bias
The Supreme Court agreed yesterday to hear the case of a Texas death row inmate who contends prosecutors kept blacks off his jury. The justices could use the case to clarify rules for claiming racial discrimination in jury selection. ... Prosecutors used their power to challenge specific jurors as a way to eliminate 10 of 11 potential black jurors before Miller-El's trial, his lawyers claim. Miller-El is black. (2/16/02, The Washington Post)
- Justice Scalia Challenges Catholic Judges
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Catholic judges who follow their church's teaching that capital punishment is wrong should resign, says U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. Scalia, a devout Roman Catholic, said Monday that after giving it serious thought, he could not agree with the church's stand on the issue. ... Under Pope John Paul II, the Catholic Church has been strongly anti-death penalty. The pope has personally appealed to leaders to commute death sentences. (2/5/02, CNN.com)
- Supreme Court Case Could Affect CO Death Penalty
The U.S. Supreme Court agreed Friday to review an Arizona death penalty case that could change Colorado's method of imposing death sentences. "It could eliminate the Colorado death penalty scheme," defense lawyer David Lane said. It also could spare the lives of three of the six men now on Colorado's death row. The issue before the U.S. Supreme Court is whether it is constitutional for judges, instead of juries, to decide whether a convicted defendant should be sentenced to death. (1/12/02, Rocky Mountain News)
- High Court Reaffirms Jurys' Need to Know
WASHINGTON -- A divided Supreme Court underscored its view Wednesday that jurors choosing between a death sentence and a life term in prison should be told if the convicted killer has no chance of parole. The court ruled 5-4 that jurors at the 1996 trial of a convicted South Carolina killer should have known that he could never be released if he was sentenced to life in prison. (1/10/02, The Daily Camera)
News | National News | World News | News Commentary
|
|
|
|
|