Supreme Court to Review Death Sentencing
Feature Story by Celeste Berry - 1/14/2002
The Supreme Court announced on January 11, 2002, that it will soon decide whether it is constitutional for states to allow judges alone, rather than juries, to sentence convicted murderers to death. Currently, nine states allow judges to decide whether a particular offence includes enough aggravating factors, such as extreme brutality to warrant the death penalty, leaving the fate of 795 persons on death row in these states up to a single judge or a panel of judges.The ultimate ruling in the case Ring v. Arizona, No. 01-488, could decide this issue. In 1996, an Arizona jury convicted Timothy Stuart Ring of murdering an armored car driver in the course of a robbery. Under Arizona law, a judge considered the evidence and decided that Ring’s crime was serious enough to warrant the death penalty.
Ring’s attorneys challenged the case to the Arizona Supreme Court, citing the earlier Supreme Court ruling in Apprendi v. New Jersey, which stated that, any fact related to an alleged crime that would increase a defendant's prison term beyond the maximum prescribed by law must be proved to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt. However, despite this ruling, the majority did not go so far as to overturn death penalty statutes such as Arizona’s
Ring’s attorneys argue that the majority opinion is in fact inconsistent with such statutes, and are confident that the judges will overturn their client’s sentence.
