Capital Punishment: Summary of Supreme Court Decisions of the 2001-02 Term (CRS Report for Congress)
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| Release Date |
July 8, 2002 |
| Report Number |
RL31494 |
| Report Type |
Report |
| Authors |
Paul Starett Wallace, Jr., American Law Division |
| Source Agency |
Congressional Research Service |
Summary:
The Supreme Court took six significant actions with respect to capital punishment during the
2001-02 Term. In Atkins v. Virginia, which many consider the most significant case
of the term, the Court
decided on June 20, 2002, that executing the mentally retarded violates the Eighth Amendment ban
on "cruel and unusual punishment." Three cases involved issues concerning the constitutional
standards for effective- assistance- of- counsel in death penalty cases. On March 27, 2002, in
Mickens v. Taylor , the Court addressed "what a defendant must show in order to
demonstrate a Sixth
Amendment violation where the trial court fails to inquire into a potential conflict of interest about
which it knew or reasonably should have known." The majority held that a defendant in such
circumstances must meet the test of Cuyler v. Sullivan which requires showing an actual
conflict of
interest which adversely affected his representation. On May 28, 2002, the Court in Bell v.
Cone,
voted 8-1 to uphold the death sentence of a Tennessee man whose lawyer presented no mitigation
case in the penalty phase and offered no closing argument in response to the prosecution's request
for death. The majority held that there was not an "entire" failure by counsel. This case is
noteworthy because of its relationship to another performance case where the attorney for the defense
in Cockrell v. Burdine, dozed off as many as 10 times during the trial, for as long as 10
minutes. The
Court refused to reinstate the death sentence by denying certiorari. By declining to
intervene in a
case that focused national attention on the quality of legal representation for death penalty
defendants, the Court's action did not establish a precedent that would apply to capital cases where
there continue to be concerns regarding chronic complaints of inadequate and ineffective-assistance-
of-counsel. While the Court may have found a sleeping lawyer troubling, it declined to reconsider
the larger issue in Cockrell : what constitutes ineffective-assistance-of-counsel in death
penalty cases.
On June 24, 2002, in Ring v. Arizona, the Court decided in the often criticized practice
of having a
judge, rather than a jury, decide the critical sentencing issues in a death penalty case that a judge
could not make findings that would increase a defendant's sentence to the maximum, since that was
comparable to an additional conviction. This decision should be submitted to a jury and would
require proof beyond a reasonable doubt in order to justify the death penalty. Finally, on June 28,
2002, the Court in United States v. Bass ruled against a black defendant's effort to seek
discovery
regarding his claim that blacks were charged with capital offenses more than others. The Court ruled
that he failed to present evidence that similarly situated persons were treated differently.
