TheeBadOne
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http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,104450,00.html
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court said Monday it will clarify the impact of its ruling last year that juries, not a judge, must decide if a convicted killer lives or dies.
The high court forced changes in the death penalty laws of five states in 2002 because those states gave judges the final say. But the court did not make clear how its ruling should apply retroactively to inmates already on death row.
Lower courts have divided over that question, which affects more than 100 death row inmates, and the Supreme Court has agreed to clear up the confusion.
Separately, the court agreed to hear an appeal from an Alabama death row inmate who claims execution by lethal injection would be unconstitutionally cruel because of his medical condition. He is on death row for a 1978 murder.
In the larger case about the extent of its ruling on judges and juries, the high court agreed to review the case of an Arizona man convicted of raping and killing a collection agent in 1981. Warren Wesley Summerlin had spent more than two decades on death row when a federal appeals court overturned his death sentence earlier this year.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said its ruling stemmed from the earlier Supreme Court case, Ring v. Arizona, and that the high court's reasoning in the Ring case should apply retroactively to other death row inmates who had exhausted all appeals.
Other state and federal appeals courts had ruled the other way.
In the Ring case, a 7-2 majority of the Supreme Court ruled that juries, not judges, must make the crucial decisions that send someone to death row.
The ruling invalidated the death sentence laws of Arizona, Montana, Idaho, Nebraska and Colorado and called into question whether 168 inmates then on death row in those states would be put to death. The Ring ruling also cast doubt on death sentences imposed in four additional states that used a combination of juries and judges to impose the death penalty.
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court said Monday it will clarify the impact of its ruling last year that juries, not a judge, must decide if a convicted killer lives or dies.
The high court forced changes in the death penalty laws of five states in 2002 because those states gave judges the final say. But the court did not make clear how its ruling should apply retroactively to inmates already on death row.
Lower courts have divided over that question, which affects more than 100 death row inmates, and the Supreme Court has agreed to clear up the confusion.
Separately, the court agreed to hear an appeal from an Alabama death row inmate who claims execution by lethal injection would be unconstitutionally cruel because of his medical condition. He is on death row for a 1978 murder.
In the larger case about the extent of its ruling on judges and juries, the high court agreed to review the case of an Arizona man convicted of raping and killing a collection agent in 1981. Warren Wesley Summerlin had spent more than two decades on death row when a federal appeals court overturned his death sentence earlier this year.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said its ruling stemmed from the earlier Supreme Court case, Ring v. Arizona, and that the high court's reasoning in the Ring case should apply retroactively to other death row inmates who had exhausted all appeals.
Other state and federal appeals courts had ruled the other way.
In the Ring case, a 7-2 majority of the Supreme Court ruled that juries, not judges, must make the crucial decisions that send someone to death row.
The ruling invalidated the death sentence laws of Arizona, Montana, Idaho, Nebraska and Colorado and called into question whether 168 inmates then on death row in those states would be put to death. The Ring ruling also cast doubt on death sentences imposed in four additional states that used a combination of juries and judges to impose the death penalty.