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News
Supreme Court News Resources
Supreme Court News Stories from
2004
- About
Broken Links
- Court
to Decide on Access
WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court agreed
Friday to decide whether the federal
courts must give a hearing to a Mexican
death-row inmate in Texas who says the
state violated international law by trying
him for murder without first notifying
Mexican diplomats who might have helped
him. ... The court received friend-of-the
court briefs from the European Union, Argentina,
Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, El
Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua,
Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, Venezuela and
Mexico, all urging it to hear the case.
Also supporting Medellin's appeal was
a group of former U.S. diplomats, including
former Iran hostage L. Bruce Laingen,
who argued that U.S. citizens abroad
will "suffer in kind" if their
own courts do not enforce consular access.
... The case accepted for review Friday
is Medellin v. Dretke, No. 04-5928. Oral
argument will take place in March. A
decision is expected by July. (12/11/04,
The Daily Camera)
- Supreme
Court to Hear Case Again
WASHINGTON -- The scene at the Supreme
Court as a Texas death penalty case was
argued Monday morning was strikingly
familiar. The two lawyers who stood before
the justices were the same two who argued
for the same parties two years ago ...
In the intervening two years, the Supreme
Court has made clear its growing unease with
the administration of the death penalty in
Texas and its exasperation with the state
and federal courts that hear appeals from
the state's death row. The Supreme Court
was now taking the unusual step of hearing
Miller-El's appeal from the 5th U.S. Circuit
Court of Appeals for a second time, and several
justices indicated that the concerns they
expressed the first time had not been allayed.
(12/7/04, The Daily Camera)
- High
Court Debates Teen Executions
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court
is considering whether the United States
is out of step with the rest of the world,
and with national and global standards
of decency, by allowing teenage killers
to be put to death. ... Juvenile offenders
are executed in just a few other countries,
including Iran, Pakistan, China and Saudi
Arabia. International leaders contend the
practice leaves the United States diplomatically
isolated and vulnerable to charges of hypocrisy
on human rights issues. The Supreme Court
has looked increasingly at international
opinion, and its four most liberal members
have gone on record against a practice
they said was "a relic of the past
and is inconsistent with evolving standards
of decency in a civilized society." (10/13/04,
CNN.com)
- Supreme
Court Will Hear Case About Juror Instructions
The
U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear a
death row appeal from a Pennsylvania
man who maintains that jurors at his
trial should have been told that they
had the option of sentencing him to life
without parole instead of the death penalty.
According to the brief filed on behalf
of Ronald Rompilla, the jury asked several
questions during his trial about Rompilla's "future
dangerousness," yet were never told
that if sentenced to prison he would
never be eligible for later release.
(10/4/04, DPIC Update)
- Supreme
Court: Death Sentences Remain
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court
refused Thursday to overturn the death
sentences of more than 100 inmates who
argued their fates were improperly determined
by judges, not jurors. The 5-4 decision
spares at least four states from having
to decide whether to spend millions of
dollars for new sentencing hearings or
consent to prison sentences for the convicted
killers. ... The 2002 Supreme Court ruling,
Ring v. Arizona, forced changes in the death
penalty laws of Arizona, Montana, Idaho,
Nebraska and Colorado, because those
states left it to judges to determine
whether a killer should be executed.
The ruling also cast doubt on death-sentencing
procedures in other states that used
a combination of juries and judges to
impose death sentences. Had the high
court ruled the other way, states would
have had to decide whether to pursue
death sentences for 85 Arizona inmates
and about 25 others in Idaho, Montana
and Nebraska. Inmates in other states
also could have tried to use the ruling
to win new sentences. (6/24/04, CNN.com)
- Supreme
Court Refuses Case of Mentally Ill
Convict
WASHINGTON -- In other action Monday
at the U.S. Supreme Court: Refused to
consider the appeal of a South Carolina
death row inmate convicted of killing
two third-graders during a shooting spree
at an elementary school in 1988. Mental
health groups had urged it to use Jamie
Wilson's case to decide if it is unconstitutional
for states to execute people who were
seriously mentally ill when they committed
their crimes. (6/22/04, The Daily Camera)
- Supreme
Court Sides with Alabama Death Inmate
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court
ruled unanimously Monday that a convicted
Alabama killer can pursue an appeal claiming
lethal injection is cruel and unusual
punishment in his case. ... Nelson's
case had given justices a stark look
at how inmates are put to death. ...
The court was using Nelson's case (Nelson
v. Campbell, 03-6821) to decide a technical
question of whether last-minute appeals
from death row inmates should be allowed
in federal courts. ... Also Monday, the
Supreme Court agreed to decide (in Woodford
v. Payton, 03-1039)
whether a convicted California killer's
religious conversion should have been
considered by a jury that sentenced him
to death. (5/24/04, CNN.com)
- Justice
Condemns Capital Punishment
U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens
told a convention of lawyers and judges
in Chicago, "I think this country
would be much better off if we did not
have capital punishment." Stevens
still thinks the death penalty is constitutional.
"But I really think it's a very unfortunate
part of our judicial system and I would
feel much, much better if more states would
really consider whether they think the
benefits outweigh the very serious potential
injustice, because in these cases the emotions
are very, very high on both sides and to
have stakes as high as you do in these
cases, there is the special potential for
error," he said. ... Stevens' statement
at the 7th Circuit Bar Association dinner
in Chicago on Monday appears to be the most
pronounced statement against capital punishment
made by a Supreme Court justice since the
late Harry Blackmun wrote in 1994: "From
this day forward, I no longer shall tinker
with the machinery of death." (5/12/04,
NCADP)
- Supreme
Court Hears Execution Arguments
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court
used the case of Alabama death row inmate
David Larry Nelson for a stark discussion
Monday about execution methods, and whether
federal judges can consider last-minute
challenges to punishment. The case is Nelson
v. Campbell, case no. 03-6821. (3/29/04,
CNN.com)
- High
Court Reverses Inmate's Death Penalty
WASHINGTON
(CNN) -- Supreme Court justices Tuesday
ruled Texas prosecutors withheld
evidence from defense lawyers and reversed
the death penalty for a man who at one
time was minutes away from execution. The
case
renewed a long-standing debate over whether
capital defendants consistently receive
adequate representation and fair treatment
from the
courts. Writing for a 7-2 majority, Justice
Ruth Bader Ginsburg said, "When police
or prosecutors conceal significant exculpatory
or impeaching material, we hold, it is ordinarily
incumbent on the state to set the record
straight." In a rare move, justices
on March 13, 2003, halted Delma Banks' scheduled
execution
10 minutes before he was to receive a lethal
injection. (2/25/04, CNN.com)
- Supreme
Court Revisits Execution of Teens
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Supreme Court Monday
agreed to again decide the constitutionality
of executing people who were juveniles at
the time they committed murder. The justices
will consider the Missouri case of Christopher
Simmons, who was 17 at the
time of a murder-robbery. The state Supreme
Court overturned his death sentence
last year, saying the execution of those under 18 violated the Constitution's ban
on "cruel and unusual punishment." (1/26/04, CNN.com)
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