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News
Supreme Court News Resources
Supreme Court News Stories from 2005
- About
Broken Links
- Supreme
Court Agrees to Hear Cases with Death
Penalty Implications
On November 7,
the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear cases
in two areas that could have broad implications
for many defendants facing the death penalty.
In Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, No. 05-184, the
Court will rule on the constitutionality
of the military tribunals established by
President Bush following the September
11, 2001 terrorist attacks. The Court also
agreed to hear two cases that raise issues
related to the U.S.'s lack of compliance
with the Vienna Convention on Consular
Relations.
(11/14/05, DPIC Update)
- Supreme
Court Accepts Third Case About Innocence
The U.S. Supreme Court agreed yesterday
to review the case of a death row inmate
from South Carolina who was denied the
opportunity at trial to present evidence
of the possible guilt of another person.
In Holmes v. South Carolina, No. 04-1327,
the Court will consider whether the state's
rules regarding such evidence deprived
Holmes of his due process rights to present
a complete defense. (10/3/05, DPIC Update)
- Supreme
Court's Stevens Criticizes Death Penalty
CHICAGO
(AP) -- Supreme Court Justice John
Paul Stevens issued an unusually stinging
criticism of capital punishment Saturday
evening, telling lawyers that he was
disturbed by "serious flaws." ...
Recent exonerations of death row inmates
through scientific evidence are significant,
he told the American Bar Association, "not
only because of its relevance to the
debate about the wisdom of continuing
to administer capital punishment, but
also because it indicates that there
must be serious flaws in our administration
of criminal justice." Other Supreme
Court justices, including Sandra Day
O'Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, have
also spoken out about concerns that defendants
in murder cases are not adequately represented
at trial. But Stevens, 85, made a much
harsher and sweeping condemnation. He
said the jury selection process and the
fact that many trial judges are elected
also work against accused murderers.
He also said that jurors might be improperly
swayed by victim-impact statements. (8/7/05,
USA Today)
- Last-Minute
Execution Stay by Supreme Court
RICHMOND, Va. -- The
U.S. Supreme Court granted a last-minute
stay of execution Monday. ... Robin Lovitt,
41, had been scheduled for execution at 9
p.m. Monday. ... The stay will remain in
place until the full court resumes in October.
The court will then either hear Lovitt's
appeal or allow Virginia to execute him.
(7/11/05, ABCnews.com)
- Supreme
Court Agrees to Consider Standards
for Claims of Innocence
The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to
hear a capital case challenging the standard
of proof needed for claims of innocence
based on new evidence. The Justices will
consider an appeal filed by Paul House,
a Tennessee death row inmate who says
new DNA evidence proves he was wrongfully
convicted. ... The issue before the Supreme
Court is what standard should be used
by federal courts to evaluate claims
of innocence on the basis of newly discovered
evidence. The case is House v. Bell,
No. 04-8990. (7/5/05, DPIC Update)
- Supreme
Court Orders Retrial for Shoddy Defense
Nearing
the end of a term marked by a host
of second-guess rulings on death penalty
sentences, the court concluded Monday
that the attorney for a man convicted
of killing a tavern owner had done sloppy
work. In a 5-4 decision, justices ruled
in the 17-year-old murder case that the
lawyer for Ronald Rompilla had not properly
investigated possible evidence of mental
retardation, and they ordered a new trial
for the defendant. ... The ruling is
a defeat for death penalty advocates,
who have pushed for less federal court
review of capital trials. Under Chief
Justice William H. Rehnquist, the conservative-leaning
court has generally agreed, declining
to overturn death sentences except when
they are "objectively unreasonable" given
all the evidence at trial. (6/20/05,
CNN.com)
- Supreme
Court Overturns "Stacked-Jury" Death
Sentence
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The U.S. Supreme
Court overturned the conviction of a
black death row inmate who said Texas
prosecutors unfairly stacked his jury
with whites, issuing a harsh rebuke to
the state that executes more people than
any other. ... Miller-El contends that
Dallas County prosecutors had a long
history of excluding blacks from juries
and pointed to training manuals that
were distributed to prosecutors from
the 1960s into the early 1980s. The manuals
advised prosecutors to remove blacks
or Jews from death penalty juries on
the theory that those groups would be
more sympathetic to criminal defendants.
(6/3/05, CNN.com)
- Supreme
Court to Consider "Lingering Doubt" Evidence
in Capital Cases
In Oregon v. Guzek, the U.S. Supreme
Court has announced that it will consider
whether capital defendants have a constitutional
right to present evidence that would
cast doubt on their conviction during
the penalty phase of their death penalty
trials, a question that has divided state
and lower federal courts for many years.
The defendant, Randy Lee Guzek, sought
to introduce alibi evidence after he
was convicted during the sentencing phase
of his trial. This evidence tended to
show that he had not been present at
the victims' home at the time of the
murders. ... In some cases, juries decide
to sentence a defendant to life rather than
death becasue they retain lingering doubts
about the defendant's guilt, despite having
convicted him. The case will be argued in
the fall 2005 term. (5/2/05, DPIC)
- Supreme
Court Hears Case with International
Implications
Justices heard arguments in the case
of Jose Medellin, who says his rights
under a U.S. treaty were violated when
a Texas court tried and sentenced him
to death in 1994 without giving him
consular access. Several of the justices
showed little interest in deciding for
now the impact of that treaty on domestic
cases, particularly after President Bush
last month ordered new state court hearings
for Medellin and 50 other Mexicans
on death row. ... The case, which has attracted
worldwide attention, is seen as a test
of how much weight the Supreme Court will
give in domestic death penalty cases to
the International Court of Justice, or
ICJ, in The Hague, which ruled last year
that the 51 convictions violated the 1963
Vienna Convention. It comes amid a growing
divide on the Supreme Court over the role
of international opinion to support decisions
interpreting the U.S. Constitution. Last
month, justices ruled 5-4 to outlaw the
death penalty for juvenile criminals, citing
in part the weight of international views
against the practice. ... Medellin is supported
in his appeal by dozens of countries, legal
groups and human rights organizations,
as well as former American diplomats and
the European Union. (3/29/05, CNN.com)
- High
Court: Juvenile Death Penalty Unconstitutional
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court
ruled Tuesday that the Constitution forbids
the execution of killers who were under
18 when they committed their crimes,
ending a practice used in 19 states.
The 5-4 decision throws out the death
sentences of about 70 juvenile murderers
and bars states from seeking to execute
minors for future crimes. The executions,
the court said, violate the Eighth Amendment
ban on cruel and unusual punishment. The
ruling continues the court's practice of
narrowing the scope of the death penalty,
which justices reinstated in 1976. The court
in 1988 outlawed executions for those 15
and younger when they committed their crimes.
Three years ago justices banned executions
of the mentally retarded. (3/1/05, CNN.com)
- 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)
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