CAPITAL PUNISHMENT: SUMMARY OF SUPREME COURT DECISIONS DURING THE 1997-98 TERM (CRS Report for Congress)
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| Release Date |
April 19, 1999 |
| Report Number |
RL30145 |
| Report Type |
Report |
| Authors |
Paul S. Wallace, Jr., American Law Division |
| Source Agency |
Congressional Research Service |
Summary:
In 1972, the U.S. Supreme Court found the death penalty as written in various state laws to be
"arbitrary and capricious". Therefore, the Court found it to be unconstitutional under the Eighth and
Fourteenth Amendments and subsequently, executions throughout the states were stopped. Shortly
after that, states began to rewrite their capital-crime laws using the new guidelines promulgated by
the Court and capital punishment was resumed in the United States. None of the cases decided
during the last term (1997-98) are likely to be remembered as landmark decisions which will impact
significantly on the current drift of the Court in capital punishment decisions. It held in Breard
v
Angelone that the Eighth Amendment did not require special jury instructions on the concept
of
mitigation or on the statutorily defined mitigating factors and that in the context of the case, jurors
were unlikely to have misunderstood their obligation to consider mitigating evidence. In the other
decision on jury instructions, the Court held in Hopkins v. Reeves that instructions on
lesser offenses
are constitutionally required only if the state law recognizes them as included in the capital crime
charged. In a decision that was critical of action taken by a federal court of appeals to cancel a state
prisoner's imminent execution, the Court in Calderon v. Thompson set an onerous
standard for the
appeals court to meet before it voluntarily recalls a mandate denying habeas relief to the prisoner in
order to reassess the merits of the prior decision. In the Breard v. Greene case, the
Court, noting that
the procedural rules of the forum state govern the implementation of the treaty in that state, declined
to halt the state's execution of a foreign national notwithstanding claims by the prisoner and his
country that state officials violated provisions of the treaty. Lastly, the Court in Ohio Adult
Parole
Authority v. Woodard decided that conferring upon the inmate the option of voluntarily
participating
in a pre-hearing interview with members of the parole board, without giving him immunity for his
statements at the interview, did not compel the inmate to speak and, therefore, did not violate his
Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination.
