eighth amendment

This case asks the Supreme Court to determine whether a death row inmate challenging an execution method must prove a feasible alternative execution method when the challenged method will allegedly inflict an unconstitutional level of pain as applied to the inmate’s medical condition. Russell Bucklew argues that the state should bear the burden of proving an alternative method in such an “as-applied” challenge. He reasons that because there is no risk that the challenged execution method will be outlawed in its entirety and because the state is in the best position to evaluate the effect of existing execution methods on the inmate’s medical condition, the Court should place the burden on the state. The Department of Corrections (“DOC”) argues that the inmate in an “as-applied” challenge case should bear this burden. The DOC notes that the inmate would be able to obtain an exemption from capital punishment and needlessly delay their execution by bringing meritless claims if the Court placed the burden on the state rather than on the inmate. The Supreme Court’s decision in this case will impact the ability of inmates to challenge execution methods, the administrability of common execution methods such as lethal injection, and the effect of the capital punishment process on drug regulators, physicians, and state corrections officers.

In 1984, Terrance Williams was sentenced to death for the murder of Amos Norwood. After successfully receiving post-conviction sentencing relief in 2012, the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania reversed and reinstated Williams’ sentence. In this case, the U.S. Supreme Court will decide whether the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments require the recusal of an appellate judge—here Pennsylvania Chief Justice Ronald Castille—from participation in a capital punishment appeal when the judge led the District Attorney’s Office that prosecuted the same case. Williams argues that due process compels recusal, given the risk of potential bias and partiality that may taint both the judge’s decision-making and the reviewing tribunal’s impartiality. However, Pennsylvania argues that Justice Castille’s recusal was not constitutionally required under the Court’s holding in Caperton v. A.T. Massey Coal Co., 556 U.S. 868 (2009), nor was his presence on the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania in violation of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. This case will impact an appellate judge’s ability to make discretionary determinations regarding his or her own recusal.

LaRoyce Lathair Smith, who was sentenced to death in 1991, appears before the Supreme Court for the second time. Smith argues that the Texas Criminal Court of Appeals denied his petition for state habeas corpus relief in contravention of the analysis standards handed down in the Supreme Court’s first opinion. In addition, Smith argues that the Criminal Court of Appeals applied a heightened egregious harm standard to a procedural issue that it failed to consider on direct appeal. Texas, on the other hand, contends that the Criminal Court of Appeals was justified in reconsidering issues not addressed by the Supreme Court and asserts that the standards applied were the prevailing state standards for evaluating Smith’s claim. The Supreme Court’s decision in this case should clarify the proper way for state courts to evaluate defendants’ claims attacking the constitutionality of jury instructions regarding mitigating evidence during the sentencing phase of capital cases.

Respondent, Frank Spisak (“Spisak”), was convicted on four counts of aggravated murder and four other felony counts for engaging in a shooting spree on and around Cleveland State University in 1982. The jury recommended, and the judge accepted, a death sentence. After the Ohio state courts denied Spisak’s appeals, the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit ordered a new penalty phase of the trial. The Circuit Court held that defense counsel’s deficient performance during the trial’s sentencing phase functionally denied Spisak his Sixth Amendment right to effective legal representation. The Sixth Circuit held further that the jury instructions regarding sentencing violated the Eighth Amendment, because the jury may have misunderstood them to require a unanimous rejection of the death penalty before considering a life sentence. On its second time before the United States Supreme Court, Ohio argues that the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 ("AEDPA") requires the federal courts to defer to the Ohio Supreme Court's decision to deny Spisak’s Sixth and Eighth Amendment claims.

Plata v. Schwarzenegger and Coleman v. Schwarzenegger were separate class actions concerning healthcare conditions in California state prisons. Although the cases were decided separately, they resulted in similar outcomes: the district court in each case determined that the lack of adequate physical or mental care violated the prisoners’ Eighth Amendment rights, leading to years of court orders designed to remedy the violations. After California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a state of emergency due to prison overcrowding in 2006, the Plata and Coleman plaintiffs argued that the only means of remedying the continued constitutional violations was the release of significant numbers of inmates from state prisons. Subsequently, a three-judge district court convened under the Prison Litigation Reform Act (“PLRA”) issued a prisoner release order. Governor Schwarzenegger and other state officials (“Schwarzenegger”) appealed the decision to the Supreme Court. They contend that the three-judge district court improperly applied the PLRA because California had not had sufficient time to implement the latest court order. Schwarzenegger also contends that the district court failed to determine that overcrowding was the primary cause of the violations. In response, the Plata and Coleman plaintiffs, along with the California Correctional Police Officers’ Association, argue that the PLRA was properly applied because the state was given a reasonable amount of time to comply with previous court orders and the prisoner release order remedied the primary cause of the violations. The Supreme Court’s decision will determine when courts may remedy constitutional violations through a prisoner release order under the PLRA, and could dramatically alter the number of prisoners and the services provided in California prisons.

The Supreme Court will decide if it is lawful to execute a man who—years after committing murder—developed vascular dementia that affects his ability to understand his surroundings and prevents him from remembering the facts of his crime. Petitioner Vernon Madison contends that a broad range of mental conditions can prohibit defendants from understanding the circumstances of their executions and thus should prevent lawful execution of such defendants. The State of Alabama counters that a defendant’s memory of the murder is irrelevant to the analysis of whether the defendant’s execution is unlawful under the Eighth Amendment. The American Psychological Association and the American Psychiatric Association, in support of Madison call for an expansion of the category of mental disabilities that can render a person incompetent to be lawfully executed and contend that the execution of inmates with dementia would not serve deterrence purposes. However, fourteen states writing in support Alabama distinguish dementia and other age-related disabilities from intellectual disability and add that the retributive aspects of the death penalty are important enough to allow the execution of inmates with dementia and other age-related mental disorders. Accordingly, the Court’s decision will affect defendants who are exempt from execution as well as the litigation strategy of death row inmates as they approach the age of onset for age-related mental disorders during the lengthy appeals process.

Christopher Simmons was tried, convicted, and sentenced to death for first degree murder for a crime that he committed at age 17. He appealed as of right to the Missouri Supreme Court, which exercises exclusive jurisdiction in death penalty case. In 1997, the Missouri Supreme Court affirmed the conviction and the sentence. State v. Simmons, 944 S.W.2d 165, 169 (Mo. 1997). On his initial appeal, Simmons could not argue that his youth prohibited his execution because the United States Supreme Court held in 1989 that there was no national consensus against the execution of young adults who were sixteen or seventeen years old at the time of their crimes, and that, as a result, executing juveniles was not cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment. See Simmons v. Roper, 112 S.W.3d 397, 399 (Mo. 2003) (en banc) (discussing Stanford v. Kentucky, 492 U.S. 361 (1989)). The Missouri Supreme Court thus affirmed the Circuit Court of Jefferson County, Missouri on both the conviction and death sentence. See id.

In 2002, the United States Supreme Court reversed Penry v. Lynaugh, 492 U.S. 302 (1989), which held that a national consensus did not exist against execution of the mentally retarded. Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U.S. 304 (2002). In Atkins, the Supreme Court concluded that such a consensus had developed in the thirteen years since Penry and that executing the mentally retarded violates the Eighth Amendment. Id. at 321. Hoping that the Supreme Court's ruling in Atkins might signal a parallel shift in the Court's view toward the execution of juvenile offenders, Simmons appeared before the Missouri Supreme Court again in 2003 on a writ of habeas corpus, arguing that a national consensus opposing the execution of sixteen- and seventeen-year-old offenders had emerged since Stanford v. Kentucky. Simmons, 112 S.W.3d at 399. The Missouri Supreme Court agreed, reasoning that "the Supreme Court would today hold such executions are prohibited by the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments." Id. at 400.

The United States Supreme Court agreed to hear Simmons' case in order to address two specific issues. First, the Court will consider whether a lower court may contradict a previous ruling by the Supreme Court. Specifically, the Court will decide whether it was permissible for the Missouri Supreme Court to conclude that the execution of juvenile offenders is cruel and unusual punishment and violates the Eighth Amendment, in direct contradiction to the Supreme Court's ruling in Stanford v. Kentucky. Second, the Supreme Court will decide for itself whether a national consensus now opposes the execution of offenders younger than eighteen years and, therefore, whether the practice now violates the Eighth Amendment's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.

In 1992, Panetti killed his parents-in-law by shooting them at close range inside their Texas home while his wife and daughter watched in terror. After surrendering to police, Panetti was tried, convicted of murder, and sentenced to death. Panetti, however, suffers from a long history of mental illness including schizoaffective disorder. Although he understands that he killed two people and he knows that the state’s stated reason for his execution is because of the murders, he believes that the state actually intends to execute him in order to carry out a satanic conspiracy against him. Panetti petitioned both the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas and the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit for a writ of habeas corpus, but both courts upheld Panetti’s execution on the grounds that he is “aware” of his death sentence and its stated purpose. Panetti argues that “awareness” is not enough and that a prisoner must also have a “rational understanding” of the connection between his crime and punishment. By accepting certiorari review of this case, the Supreme Court of the United States will determine whether executing a mentally ill prisoner who lacks “rational understanding” of the reasons for his execution would violate the Eighth Amendment.

Randy Lee Guzek, along with his friends Mark Wilson and Ross Cathey, murdered an Oregon couple in the summer of 1987. After eighteen years of litigation, involving three different appeals, the Oregon Supreme Court held that the alibi testimony Guzek attempted to introduce during the sentencing phase of his trial—statements from his grandfather and his mother placing him at home during the time of the crime—could be introduced as “mitigating evidence” tending to show that Guzek should not receive the death penalty. The State of Oregon took issue with this ruling, and appealed to the Supreme Court. It argues that such evidence cannot be admitted because the so-called “residual doubt” evidence is no longer relevant at the sentencing phase of a defendant’s capital trial. Guzek, on the other hand, argues that the Constitution requires admittance of such evidence at his sentencing phase—he claims that the jury will not improperly use this evidence and that in order to meet the state’s case and refute the state’s evidence, he must be able to introduce the so-called “residual doubt” evidence. The Supreme Court will decide whether Guzek is correct, and whether the trial court is Constitutionally required to admit this “residual doubt” evidence, despite the fact that it might introduce doubt about Guzek’s previously determined and settled guilt.