Because Freedom Can't Protect Itself

PRESS RELEASE

June 24, 2004

CONTACT:

Marty Durand, Legislative Counsel

(208) 344-9750 ext. 202

mdurand@acluidaho.org

ARBITRARY AND CAPRICIOUS: SUPREME COURT RULING TREATS DEATH ROW INMATES DIFFERENTLY ACCORDING TO TIME OF CONVICTION, SAYS ACLU

June 24, 2004 – Today’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling against a man on Arizona’s death row represents a callous elevation of procedure over substance and means that the right of trial by jury applies to some people on death row but not others, the American Civil Liberties Union of Idaho said today.

The U.S. Supreme Court, on a 5-4 vote, ruled Warren Wesley Summerlin is not entitled to new sentencing hearings in light of the court’s 2002 ruling in Ring v. Arizona. In Ring, the court ruled that juries, not judges, must hear the evidence that can result in a death sentence. In Summerlin’s case, the U.S. Supreme Court was, in essence, deciding whether the Ring ruling should be made retroactive.

Marty Durand, Legislative Council for the Idaho ACLU, said the effect of today’s ruling is to create two sets of rules for people under sentence of death. “Some people on death row already have benefited from Ring and seen their sentences reversed,” Durand said. “Now others also under sentence of death will be denied relief. It is fundamentally unfair and counter to the principle of justice that some people have a constitutional right to a jury trial and others do not.  Inmates who have been raising this issue for more than twenty years will not get the constitutional right they’ve been fighting for, while other inmates recently convicted will get the right to a full trial by jury.” 

Today’s ruling could affect approximately 110 people on death row, including 15 in Idaho. However, Durand noted that some people on death row may still be able to pursue Ring-related issues in state courts using state constitutional law. “Today’s ruling is not the last word,” Durand said. “It is, however, further evidence that after 28 years of tinkering with and trying to reform the death penalty, there is still no good way of determining who lives and who dies. The death penalty system remains as arbitrary and as capricious as it was in 1972, when death penalty statutes were struck down, and as it was in 1976, when new statutes were approved. The death penalty simply doesn’t make sense.”

For additional comments:

Dennis Benjamin, Attorney, Boise, 343-1000

Prof. Mike Blankenship, Boise State University, 426-3776

Joan Fisher, Federal Public Defender, Moscow, 883-0180

Andy Parnes, Attorney, Ketchum, 726-1010

Tom McCabe, Attorney, Boise, 336-5200