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X-NO ARCHIVE: YES
Supreme Court Rebukes Texas Again
Over a Death Sentence
By LINDA GREENHOUSE
WASHINGTON, Nov. 15 - The Supreme Court overturned a
Texas death sentence on Monday while delivering its
latest rebuke to the way the death penalty is being
handled by judges in the state, which has executed far
more people than any other in the modern era of capital punishment.
The errors committed by the Texas Court of Criminal
Appeals in upholding the death sentence of LaRoyce L.
Smith were so clear to a majority of the Supreme Court
that the justices decided the case in the inmate's
favor on the basis of the briefs, without hearing
arguments.
Only Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas
dissented from the unsigned 12-page opinion. They did
not write an opinion of their own.
Mr. Smith was convicted in 1991 of murdering a
co-worker at a Taco Bell restaurant in Dallas where he
had recently worked. He was 19. With an I.Q. of 78, he
had reached the ninth grade in special education
classes.
In the sentencing phase of his trial, the jury
sentenced him to death under a procedure that the Texas
Legislature was then in the process of amending to
conform to Supreme Court rulings.
The justices said Monday that the Texas appeals court
ignored problems the Supreme Court had already
identified and that it should have known, when it
affirmed the sentence last April, that the jury
instructions made the death sentence unconstitutional.
The state court "erroneously relied on a test we never
countenanced and now have unequivocally rejected," the
justices said.
In the last few years, the Supreme Court has overturned
a number of death sentences in Texas while making
evident its frustration with both the Texas Court of
Criminal Appeals and the United States Court of Appeals
for the Fifth Circuit, the federal court that hears
habeas corpus petitions from Texas inmates.
With Texas having the second-biggest death row in the
country, the Supreme Court's increasingly careful
monitoring of death sentences in that state could have
a significant effect on the overall death penalty picture.
Jordan Steiker, a law professor at the University of
Texas who is Mr. Smith's lawyer, said although dozens
of inmates might be freed from the Texas death row as a
result of the ruling in Smith v. Texas, No. 04-5323,
dozens of others in similar circumstances had been executed.
All were sentenced under a variant of jury instructions
that the Supreme Court found unconstitutional in
opinions that began in 1989 and ended on June 24 of
this year, when the court overturned another death
sentence in a case, Tennard v. Dretke.
Although the Tennard case had already been argued and a
decision was imminent, the Texas appeals court rejected
Mr. Smith's appeal without waiting for the Supreme
Court's further clarification. The question the
justices dealt with in all these cases was whether
Texas juries had received instructions that permitted
them to give adequate weight to any mitigating factors
offered by the defendant to show why he should not be executed.
Under the Texas law that the Supreme Court approved
when it permitted capital punishment to resume in 1976,
a death sentence was mandatory if jurors answered yes
to two questions: Was the killing deliberate, and would
the defendant present a continuing danger to society?
There was no room for consideration of mitigating
circumstances that the court found in subsequent
decisions had to be considered by the jury if the
defendant offered them.
After the court ruled in 1989 that Texas had to give
jurors the chance to consider mitigating factors, the
state added new instructions. Jurors who wanted to take
mitigating factors into account should do so by
answering no to one of the two questions, even if they
believed that the correct answer was yes.
In a decision in 2001, the Supreme Court found this
response constitutionally flawed. It then amplified
that decision in the Tennard case in June.
Both in 2001 and in June, the justices said, telling
jurors to answer the questions honestly and while at
the same time instructing them to disregard their own
answers placed the jurors in an untenable position,
most likely preventing them from giving proper weight
to the defendant's mitigating evidence.
The court said Monday that Mr. Smith's mitigating
evidence of a low I.Q. and troubled family background -
his father stole from the family to support a cocaine
habit and was sent to prison - were substantial enough
to require the jury's consideration.
Of the 943 executions in the country since 1976, Texas
has carried out 335, more than the next six states
combined. It has 457 people on death row, second to the
635 in California, which has conducted 10 executions.
2004 The New York Times Company
Posted by Permission
--
LP
"We are fighting today for security, for progress,
and for peace, not only for ourselves but for all
men, not only for one generation but for all
generations. We are fighting to cleanse the world
of ancient evils, ancient ills."
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
State of the Union Address - 1942
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LeMod Pol <mod_pol@igs.net> wrote:
Supreme Court Rebukes Texas Again
Over a Death Sentence
By LINDA GREENHOUSE
WASHINGTON, Nov. 15 - The Supreme Court overturned a
Texas death sentence on Monday while delivering its
latest rebuke to the way the death penalty is being
handled by judges in the state, which has executed far
more people than any other in the modern era of capital
punishment.
The errors committed by the Texas Court of Criminal
Appeals in upholding the death sentence of LaRoyce L.
Smith were so clear to a majority of the Supreme Court
that the justices decided the case in the inmate's
favor on the basis of the briefs, without hearing
arguments. ...
Well, this is why we HAVE a Supreme Court. It's
SUPPOSED to critique the lower courts when they
screw up. That way, there will be fewer screw-ups
in the future.
Of course, Texas MIGHT be executing a lot of people
because there are a lot of criminals in Texas ...
so the numbers alone don't tell us much. The legal
process and reasoning behind each case however, THAT
is subject to review and rebuke.
Seems things are working just the way they should.
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X-NO ARCHIVE: YES
Supreme Court Rebukes Texas Again
Over a Death Sentence
By LINDA GREENHOUSE
WASHINGTON, Nov. 15 - The Supreme Court overturned a
Texas death sentence on Monday while delivering its
latest rebuke to the way the death penalty is being
handled by judges in the state, which has executed far
more people than any other in the modern era of capital punishment.
The errors committed by the Texas Court of Criminal
Appeals in upholding the death sentence of LaRoyce L.
Smith were so clear to a majority of the Supreme Court
that the justices decided the case in the inmate's
favor on the basis of the briefs, without hearing
arguments.
Only Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas
dissented from the unsigned 12-page opinion. They did
not write an opinion of their own.
Mr. Smith was convicted in 1991 of murdering a
co-worker at a Taco Bell restaurant in Dallas where he
had recently worked. He was 19. With an I.Q. of 78, he
had reached the ninth grade in special education
classes.
In the sentencing phase of his trial, the jury
sentenced him to death under a procedure that the Texas
Legislature was then in the process of amending to
conform to Supreme Court rulings.
The justices said Monday that the Texas appeals court
ignored problems the Supreme Court had already
identified and that it should have known, when it
affirmed the sentence last April, that the jury
instructions made the death sentence unconstitutional.
The state court "erroneously relied on a test we never
countenanced and now have unequivocally rejected," the
justices said.
In the last few years, the Supreme Court has overturned
a number of death sentences in Texas while making
evident its frustration with both the Texas Court of
Criminal Appeals and the United States Court of Appeals
for the Fifth Circuit, the federal court that hears
habeas corpus petitions from Texas inmates.
With Texas having the second-biggest death row in the
country, the Supreme Court's increasingly careful
monitoring of death sentences in that state could have
a significant effect on the overall death penalty picture.
Jordan Steiker, a law professor at the University of
Texas who is Mr. Smith's lawyer, said although dozens
of inmates might be freed from the Texas death row as a
result of the ruling in Smith v. Texas, No. 04-5323,
dozens of others in similar circumstances had been executed.
All were sentenced under a variant of jury instructions
that the Supreme Court found unconstitutional in
opinions that began in 1989 and ended on June 24 of
this year, when the court overturned another death
sentence in a case, Tennard v. Dretke.
Although the Tennard case had already been argued and a
decision was imminent, the Texas appeals court rejected
Mr. Smith's appeal without waiting for the Supreme
Court's further clarification. The question the
justices dealt with in all these cases was whether
Texas juries had received instructions that permitted
them to give adequate weight to any mitigating factors
offered by the defendant to show why he should not be executed.
Under the Texas law that the Supreme Court approved
when it permitted capital punishment to resume in 1976,
a death sentence was mandatory if jurors answered yes
to two questions: Was the killing deliberate, and would
the defendant present a continuing danger to society?
There was no room for consideration of mitigating
circumstances that the court found in subsequent
decisions had to be considered by the jury if the
defendant offered them.
After the court ruled in 1989 that Texas had to give
jurors the chance to consider mitigating factors, the
state added new instructions. Jurors who wanted to take
mitigating factors into account should do so by
answering no to one of the two questions, even if they
believed that the correct answer was yes.
In a decision in 2001, the Supreme Court found this
response constitutionally flawed. It then amplified
that decision in the Tennard case in June.
Both in 2001 and in June, the justices said, telling
jurors to answer the questions honestly and while at
the same time instructing them to disregard their own
answers placed the jurors in an untenable position,
most likely preventing them from giving proper weight
to the defendant's mitigating evidence.
The court said Monday that Mr. Smith's mitigating
evidence of a low I.Q. and troubled family background -
his father stole from the family to support a cocaine
habit and was sent to prison - were substantial enough
to require the jury's consideration.
Of the 943 executions in the country since 1976, Texas
has carried out 335, more than the next six states
combined. It has 457 people on death row, second to the
635 in California, which has conducted 10 executions.
2004 The New York Times Company
Posted by Permission
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
BTD: (us.politics) Maybe your so called "Conservative" colleagues will learn
to distinguish between the decisions of an independent judiciary and the
bull#@($ they come to believe in during election campaigns
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"Blazin' Tommy D." wrote:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
BTD: (us.politics) Maybe your so called "Conservative" colleagues will learn
to distinguish between the decisions of an independent judiciary and the
bull#@($ they come to believe in during election campaigns
Tommy -- if you had a brain you would eat it <G>
--
LP
"We are fighting today for security, for progress,
and for peace, not only for ourselves but for all
men, not only for one generation but for all
generations. We are fighting to cleanse the world
of ancient evils, ancient ills."
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
State of the Union Address - 1942
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"Blazin' Tommy D." wrote:
Tommy -- if you had a brain you would eat it <G>
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
BTD: (us.politics) You're projecting again, Mr. Mod, because if you had a
brain you #@($ it out a long time ago.
Do you know how to do the Philly? How about the BooGaLoo?
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