United
States Supreme Court Decision Regarding the Legality of the Death Penalty and
the Sixth Amendment of the United States Constitution
By: Dr.
Peter A. Barone, Esq.
The United Supreme Court has made and rendered a decision
regarding the actual decision making process of how a criminal defendant in a
case where they are facing the death penalty. This case and decision is not the
usual objections to the death penalty which is usually brought under the Eight
Amendment of the United States Constitution due to the cruel and unusual manner
in which the death penalty is administered in its actually execution of the condemned
defendant.
This issue was demonstrated in the case of March 25, 1997. Florida. Pedro The electrocution of death row inmate Pedro Medina was a horrific
example of an electrocution gone horribly wrong. During this electrocution
a crown of foot-high flames shot from the inmate’s headpiece during the actual execution,
filling the execution chamber with a stench of thick smoke and gagging the two
dozen official witnesses. An official then threw a switch to manually cut off
the power and prematurely end the two-minute cycle of 2,000 volts. Medina's
chest continued to heave until the flames stopped and death came. After the execution, prison officials blamed
the fire on a corroded copper screen in the headpiece of the electric chair,
but two experts hired by the governor later concluded that the fire was caused
by the improper application of a sponge which was specifically designed to conduct
electricity to Medina's head during the electrocution (Martin, 1997).
The defendant has the right to have the jury make
the decision as to the defendant’s fate of life in prison or the death penalty.
There is a bifurcation in First Degree Murder case is provided for a specific reason
which is for the jury to determine guilty, which they must do before the second
part of the trial can occur. In a non-death penalty case there is a decision by
the jury and the judge makes the decision as to what sentence a person would be
given after being convicted. According to the United States Supreme Court the
current scheme that the State of Florida uses to sentence people to die is consider
to be unconstitutional and this is according to an 8-1 decision handed down by the Supreme Court on
Tuesday January 12, 2016.
In the Supreme Court’s decision, looking at the
overall situation as a matter of legal doctrine, Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s
opinion for the Court in Hurst v. Florida (2016) is not particularly surprising. However,
there’s also some uncertainty about just how far this case will go to disrupt
the death penalty in Florida. Nevertheless, this particular decision, which was
made by the United States Supreme Court is considered to be a victory for the opponents
of the death penalty and this decision was handed down just months after the
Court took an aggressively pro-execution stance last summer.
In this decision there was only one justice dissenting which was Justice Samuel
Alito.
The examination of this particular case demonstrates
that the case did involve an unusual scheme which the State of Florida uses
after someone has been convicted of a crime that can potentially carry the
death penalty. Like all death penalty trials in the United States, Florida
divides those trials into one phase to determine if a defendant is guilty and
another to determine if they should be executed. In Florida, however, the jury
only renders an “advisory sentence” during the penalty phase of the trial, and
the ultimate sentence is determined based on factual findings by the judge and
not the jury.
This process, with the judge making the decision of
the sentence of life in prison or the death penalty, is what is not what the
Sixth Amendment requires. As the Court and the Justices advise that this
particular process actually violates the Sixth Amendment’s command that in all
criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public
trial by an impartial jury and with the judge making the final decision regarding
the death penalty that is not what the Sixth Amendment requires. In fact this
exact situation was decided in another case. The Supreme Court already held in
the case of Ring v. Arizona (2002) that a similar death penalty sentencing
scheme in Arizona also violates the Sixth Amendment of the United States Constitution.
Again, in the Arizona case it was the Sixth Amendment and not the Eight
Amendment that was being violated.
In a 7-2 decision in the case of Ring v. Arizona, (2002) the U.S.
Supreme Court held that a defendant has the right to have a jury, rather than a
judge, decide on the existence of an aggravating factor that makes the
defendant eligible for the death penalty. In its decision, the Court held that
a death sentence where the necessary aggravating factors are determined by a
judge violates a defendant's constitutional right to a trial by jury.
The existing question that is being addressed at
this time is what, if any type of an impact will the Hurst v. Florida (2016) decision have on other inmates
currently sitting on Florida’s death row. Two years after Ring, the
justices held that its Arizona decision was not retroactive to inmates whose sentences
were locked in prior to the day Ring was handed down. This may suggest
that most of the existing Florida death row inmates will not be able to take
advantage of the Hurst
decision. At the same time, however, Hurst does little more than
track the Court’s 2002 decision in Ring, suggesting that inmates whose
sentences were finalized after 2002 should benefit from the Court’s decision in
Hurst. One issue is that the Florida Supreme Court
“employs a retroactivity doctrine that is broader
than” the federal rule, with this situation it is possible that Hurst decision could apply to the entire state’s death row and this will be
something that will be addressed in the near future.
References
Martin, D. (1997 March 26). Flames
Erupt from Killer's Headpiece. The Gainesville Sun.
Hurst v. Florida, (2016).
Ring v. Arizona, (2002).
