Kansas v. Marsh
Issues
Did the Kansas Supreme Court err in deciding that the Kansas Death Penalty Statute, K.S.A. 21-4624(e) violated the Constitution by allowing a jury to impose the death penalty in a case where the aggravating evidence did not outweigh the mitigating evidence, but was simply equal to it?
Under Cox Broadcasting Corp. v. Cohn, 420 U.S. 469 (1975), does the decision of the Kansas Supreme Court below constitute a “final” judgment because the state’s highest court has decided the federal question at issue and it cannot be reviewed regardless of the outcome of state proceedings, thereby granting the United States Supreme Court jurisdiction to review the decision under 28 U.S.C. § 1257?
Michael Marsh was convicted and sentenced to death for the 1996 murders of Marry Ane Pusch and her 19-month-old daughter, M.P. Certain mitigating evidence was presented at his sentencing trial. The court weighed this mitigating evidence against the aggravating evidence and determined that the balance of the evidence was equal. Under the Kansas death penalty statute, K.S.A. 21-4624(e), in such a situation where the evidence is “in equipoise,” the tie goes to the State. Therefore, Marsh was sentenced to death. On appeal, the Kansas Supreme Court reversed Marsh’s death sentence, finding that K.S.A. 21-4624(e) was, on its face, unconstitutional and a violation of the Eighth Amendment due to the fact that it did not require a jury to find that aggravating circumstances outweigh mitigating circumstances in order to impose the death penalty.
Marsh seeks for the Supreme Court to uphold the Kansas Supreme Court ruling. He argues that the Kansas Supreme Court was correct in holding in State v. Kleypas, 272 Kan. 894 (2001), that the Kansas equipoise provision violates the Eighth Amendment because it removes a jury’s obligation to make a sentencing decision based on the individual characteristics of the defendant and the circumstances of the case. Brief for Respondent at 10. According to Marsh, this contradicts the Eighth Amendment’s requirement of individualized capital sentencing. However, the State argues that a case previously decided, Walton v. Arizona, 497 U.S. 639 (1990)controls the outcome. In that case, the equipoise concern was raised by the petitioner, but it was of no constitutional concern to the Court. Brief for Petitioner at 5. The State further argues that Kansas’ sentencing procedure does not offend the Eighth Amendment because the law narrows the class of death eligible defendants and places no restrictions on the admission of mitigating evidence. The State asserts that nothing in the Eighth or Fourteenth Amendments prevents Kansas from imposing the death penalty if aggravating evidence is not “affirmatively outweighed by mitigating evidence,” and that the decision of the Kansas Supreme Court should be reversed. Id. at 6.
Questions as Framed for the Court by the Parties
1. Does it violate the
Constitution for a state capital sentencing statute to provide for the imposition of the death penalty when the sentencing jury determines that the mitigating and aggravating evidence is in equipoise?
2. Does this court have jurisdiction to review the judgment of the Kansas Supreme Court under 28 U.S.C. § 1257, as construed by Cox Broadcasting Corp. v. Cohn, 420 U.S. 469 (1975)?
3. Was the Kansas Supreme Court’s judgment adequately supported by a ground independent of federal law?
Additional Resources
-
LII Law about... the death penalty
- Cornell Law School Death Penalty Project
- Death Penalty Information Center
- Death Penalty Focus
- Linda Greenhouse, Supreme Court Rules on Religion in Prison, N.Y. Times (June 1, 2005).