With hundreds of death sentences around the country potentially at stake, the Supreme Court yesterday heard an attorney for a convicted murderer in Arizona argue that the Constitution forbids capital punishment based on the decision of a judge rather than a jury.
The case, along with another heard earlier this term, in which a decision is still pending, signals the Supreme Court's possible interest in reshaping significantly the administration of the death penalty. The earlier case deals with the constitutionality of executing people who are mildly mentally retarded. The two cases come before the court at a tune of national debate over the fairness of state death-penalty procedures.
The oral arguments yesterday centered on the question of who may decide that a death sentence should be imposed in a capital case -- the judge or the jury.
"The basic constitutional principle is that, before you're handed over to the state to impose whatever punishment it can," Andrew D. Hurwitz told the justices, "a jury of your peers is afforded to you."
Hurwitz represents Timothy S. Ring, who was convicted by a Phoenix jury in 1996 of the 1994 robbery-slaying of an armored-car driver. After the jury verdict, a judge held a separate hearing called for under Arizona law in which he found that Ring had committed the killing in a particularly heinous way and thus deserved capital punishment.
In most of the 38 states that have the death penalty, the jury determines the defendant's fate. Arizona is one of nine states, with a total of nearly 800 death-row inmates -- -more than a fifth of the national total of 3,711 -- -in which judges choose whether to impose capital punishment. If Ring wins, most or all of those death sentences would be thrown out and new sentences would have to be decided by juries.
The Ring case also represents some of the most significant fallout yet from the Supreme Court's decision in the Apprendi case in 2000, the implications of which are still being felt throughout the state and federal criminal justice systems.
In Apprendi, the court struck down a New Jersey man's 12-year sentence for a firearms violation, which had been increased from the usual statutory maximum of 10 years based on the judge's finding that the crime had been committed out of racial bias.
Under the Sixth Amendment, which guarantees defendants a jury trial, "any fact that increases the penalty for a crime beyond the prescribed statutory minimum must be submitted to a jury and proved beyond a reasonable doubt," the court ruled.
At issue in Ring v. Arizona, No. 01-488, is whether Apprendi also applies to those death penalty cases where a judge determines whether "aggravating factors," such as the viciousness of the crime, outweigh "mitigating factors." If they do, then the penalty is execution rather than life in prison.
Arizona Attorney General Janet Napolitano said the fact that Arizona juries must find defendants guilty of the alleged crime itself before the judge acts guarantees their rights.
"Was the role of the jury embraced by Arizona? Yes," she told the court.
Apparently concerned about the practical repercussions of the case, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, a former Arizona state judge who once imposed a death sentence, asked how many other cases would be affected if Ring wins.
Napolitano painted the consequences of a victory for Ring in far-reaching terms, telling the court that it would not only overturn the court's pre-Apprendi decision upholding Arizona's system, but also identical laws in Idaho and Montana, and laws in Colorado and Nebraska providing for three-judge panels. The ruling also would affect laws in Alabama, Delaware, Florida and Indiana, where the jury recommends a sentence but the judge makes the final decision, she said. But Hurwitz suggested it was not clear that laws like the one in Florida, which has 358 inmates on death row, would be affected.
Ring was convicted of first-degree murder for shooting to death John Magosh, an armored-car driver for Wells Fargo.
There were two accomplices in the robbery attempt that led to Magosh's murder, but neither testified at his jury trial. At the sentencing hearing before the trial judge, one accomplice testified that Ring had been the "leader" and had taken joy in killing Magosh. Based largely on this testimony, the judge determined that Ring should be executed.
A decision is also pending in Atkins v. Virginia about whether the Constitution permits the execution of the mildly mentally retarded. There are 200 to 300 such inmates on death row, according to Human Rights Watch.
Separately, the court announced yesterday that next fall it will hear the case of Abu Ali Abdur'Rahman, a convicted murderer sentenced to death in Tennessee who argues that he is a victim of prosecutorial misconduct. Other courts had ruled that it was too late for him to bring up new allegations, but the Supreme Court agreed to decide if a 1996 federal law designed to limit death-penalty appeals bars judges from reopening certain cases.
