On June 25, the Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision, struck down Louisiana's law allowing a death sentence for those guilty of child rape. The Kennedy v. Louisiana opinion additionally extended the current understanding of death-eligible crimes, clarifying that the death penalty is “for crimes that take the life of the victim."
Read full coverage on the InCASE blog.
From the Death Penalty Information Center and AP:
On February 15, a mentally retarded man in Texas accepted a life sentence for a murder that occurred over 28 years ago. Johnny Paul Penry was originally sentenced to death for the sexual assault and murder of Pamela Mosley Carpenter. Penry's death sentence was overturned twice by the U.S. Supreme Court. Prior to the plea agreement, the prosecution was insisting on a fourth capital sentencing hearing for Penry.
In 1989, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that although the execution of the mentally retarded was not constitutionally banned, the law in Texas did not give mentally retarded defendants sufficient protection to ensure that their disability was considered as a mitigating factor (Penry v. Lynaugh). Penry was again sentenced to death and again the sentence was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2001 (Penry v. Johnson). In 2002, the U.S. Supreme Court in Atkins v. Virginia held that the execution of defendants with mental retardation was unconstitutional. Nevertheless, Texas continued to seek a death sentence for Penry, whose IQ has been measured between 50 and 63, well into the mental retardation range. In 2005, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals overturned Penry's latest death sentence.
In early January, the Supreme Court agreed to hear Kennedy v. Louisiana, in which the justices will decide whether the Constitution allows death as a punishment for the rape of a child.
According to the New York Times, of the 3,300 inmates currently on death row across the U.S., only two face execution for crimes that did not involve a killing. Both men are in Louisiana. The Court will hear the appeal of Patrick Kennedy, who was sentenced to death in 2004 for the rape of his 8 year-old step-daughter.
No one in the U.S. has been executed for a crime other than murder since 1964.In 1977, the Supreme Court decided in Coker v. Georgia that "a sentence of death is grossly disproportionate and excessive punishment for the crime of rape and is therefore forbidden by the Eighth Amendment as cruel and unusual punishment." But concluding that the "rape of a child under the age of 12 years of age is like no other crime," the Louisiana Supreme Court concluded that death was not disproportionate for Kennedy.
In an important amicus brief to the upcoming hearing of Kennedy's case before the Court in April, the National Association of Social Workers and a group of crisis centers argued that allowing the death penalty for rape will encourage offenders to kill their victims to prevent them from reporting the sexual assault.
According to the Associated Press, President George W. Bush has tried to halt the execution of a Mexican national on death row in Texas, Jose Ernesto Medellin (pictured to the left), whose case is to be heard by the Supreme Court on Wednesday.
Read more in The Guardian which reports, "It puts Mr Bush in the unusual position of arguing against the death penalty and against the very same Texans who helped put him in the White House. Even more unusually, it puts Mr Bush on the same side of the dispute as the International Court of Justice in The Hague."
A number of developments have occurred in the last week, following the Sept. 26 decision of the Supreme Court to hear a challenge to lethal injection sometime this winter. Below, starting with the most recent, is a review of the big decisions and stays-of-execution:
Oct. 4: Oklahoma’s attorney general asked the state’s Court of Criminal Appeals not to set any execution dates until the United States Supreme Court ruled on a challenge to the lethal injection method.
Oct. 2: The Texas Court of Appeals stayed the execution of Heliberto Chi, pending the decision by the US Supreme Court on lethal injection. Some legal experts in Texas view the decision by Texas' highest appeals court and the issues it raised as an indefinite halting of all executions in the state, though Texas officials claim they plan to proceed. See the New York Times for more.
Sept. 28: The US Supreme Court granted a rare stay of execution to a Texas inmate, Carlton Turner, Jr., who had appealed to the Court due to the pending lethal injection hearing. According to the New York Times, "The decision suggests that until it issues a ruling on lethal injection, the court may be receptive to requests to delay such executions, at least for defendants whose cases raise no procedural issues."
Sept. 28: Another rare stay of an execution by Alabama Gov. Bob Riley, who said the state would not execute inmate Tommy Arthur, while it came up with a new formula for lethal injection. State officials said they wanted to make sure prisoners were completely unconscious before they were killed--an issue that has been problematic in recent months and has temporarily halted executions in several states, including Florida.
On Sept. 26, the US Supreme Court agreed to hear an appeal by two Kentucky death row inmates, who claim that lethal injection constitutes cruel and unusual punishment and is therefore unconstitutional under the 8th amendment.
Current challenges to lethal injection have effectively stopped executions in a growing number of states, including California, Delaware, Florida, Maryland, Missouri, New Jersey, North Carolina, Oklahoma and Tennessee.
37 of the 38 death penalty states all use lethal injection (except Nebraska, which still uses the electric chair).
According to the New York Times, "Lethal injection was adopted in the 1980s as a more palatable alternative to electrocution, but it has proven increasingly troublesome. Leading medical organizations have told their members not to participate, and lawyers for death-row inmates have produced evidence showing that in the absence of expert medical attention, there is a substantial risk of error in administering the combination of anesthesia and paralyzing drugs necessary to bring about a quick and painless death."
The Times also reports, "The Supreme Court case will be argued in January or February and decided by early next summer. While it is pending, judges around the country are certain to be asked to bar executions in those states that are not already under an official or de facto moratorium."
Read the Sept. 26 piece, "Justices to Enter the Debate Over Lethal Injection," for more and continue to check this site for updates.
In January, Indiana inmate Norman Timberlake received a stay of execution after it was found that executing him before the Supreme Court heard the Scott Panetti case would be unjust and, dependent on the Court's decision, potentially unconstitutional. The June ruling of the Court re-asserts a 1986 decision, stating that in order to be executed, a convicted murderer must be able to recognize the relation between their crime and their pending death. According to this ruling, Timberlake's death sentence should be overturned, as his execution would prove a violation of our nation's principles.
Objections to the execution of Panetti, whose mental insanity includes a delusion that he is being killed to keep him from preaching the gospel, were considered parallel to those surrounding Timberlake--a paranoid schizophrenic who thinks that he is being tortured daily by a machine that will kill him to keep him silent.
The Indiana Supreme Court, in ruling that it could not allow Timberlake to be executed until Panetti was decided on
and various questions about mental illness and qualifications for the death penalty answered, provided an opportunity for justice that no lower court in the state's system afforded Timberlake.
ND ASK will monitor and report on any future hearings in Timberlake's case. It is crucial that his death sentence be overturned in light of the Panetti ruling, and we must work to ensure that the Supreme Court's recent decision takes effect in Indiana.
On June 28, the Supreme Court issued a decision overturning the death sentence of Texas death row inmate Scott Panetti. The justices ruled that Panetti, who has insisted during various stages of his capital trial and imprisonment that he is being punished for preaching the Gospel, had not been shown to have sufficient understanding of what he was being put to death for.
Since the 1986 Supreme Court case of Ford v. Wainright, the execution of the mentally insane has been constitutionally barred. But the standard for determining competency has not been laid out beyond the assertion that the Eighth Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment requires that a defendant who is to be executed must be able to recognize the relationship between his crime and his sentence.
Panetti killed his wife’s parents in 1992. Now 49 years old, he remains on death row in Texas. A schizophrenic who served as his own lawyer in court, often amounting to an incoherent and outrageous defense, Panetti claims that his body has been taken over by an alter-ego and that demons are bent on killing him for his Christian beliefs.
Medical records demonstrate that during the decade preceding his crime, Panetti had been hospitalized 14 times for schizophrenia, manic depression, hallucinations and delusions. He nailed shut the curtains of his house, buried his furniture and threatened his family—claiming to have seen visions of the devil. In 1995, after winning approval from a Texas trial judge to represent himself in court, Panetti repeatedly tried to subpoena Jesus and donned an array of costume-like attire (including purple western shirts and cowboy hats) in the courtroom. It was the jury of this trial that convicted Panetti in 90 minutes and sentenced him to death.
Panetti’s long and turbulent history in the capital process, a 15-year proceeding, has fueled criticisms of the courts and trial system in Texas, where it is now clear that at least one insane man has represented himself. The ruling overturning his death sentence is, as executive director of Amnesty International Larry Cox commented last week, “a much-needed step toward a more humane America.”
Despite the heroic efforts of David Woods' attorneys and the calls for clemency by all those who signed our petition and contacted the Governor, David Woods' request for clemency has officially been denied by the Governor. According to the Indy Star article, Governor Daniels based his decision primarily on the unanimous recommendation against clemency made by the parole board. Their letters to the Governor can be found here.
This means that, barring a U.S. Supreme Court intervention, David Woods will be executed shortly after midnight tonight.
While it may be too late for David, a call to the Governor voicing your opposition to his decision may help down the road. The Governor can be reached at 317-232-4567.
"WASHINGTON, April 25 — The Supreme Court on Wednesday overturned death sentences in three cases from Texas, all by votes of 5 to 4 and all with Justice Anthony M. Kennedy providing the margin of victory to his four more liberal colleagues.
...The three decisions on Wednesday provided the latest chapter in the Supreme Court’s dialogue with the two lower courts, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals and the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, which handle appeals from the Texas death row, the country’s most active. As an exasperated Supreme Court majority has seen it, these courts have found repeated and unpersuasive reasons to evade the Supreme Court’s evolving death penalty jurisprudence.It was that jurisprudence that was the underlying focus of the dispute among the justices. A 1996 federal law, the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, raised the bar against federal court review of state prisoners’ petitions for writs of habeas corpus.
...In the years since the 1996 law took effect, the court has been extremely reluctant to find error on the part of state courts of the type that would permit inmates to gain access to federal court. It remains to be seen whether the rulings on Wednesday will extend beyond the court’s sustained annoyance with the Fifth Circuit to signify a more expansive view toward habeas corpus, a prospect that perhaps explains the vigor of the chief justice’s dissent."
