[WCADP-list] U.S. Supreme Court Weighs Juries' Death Penalty Decisions

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Court Weighs Juries' Death Penalty Decisions 

By TONI LOCY 
Associated Press Writer; Dec. 7, 2005

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Less than a week after the nation's 1,000th execution
since states resumed capital punishment, the Supreme Court devoted its
entire session Wednesday to the intricacies of jury deliberations in death
penalty cases.

In cases out of Oregon and Kansas, the court was presented with questions
about jurors who harbor lingering doubts about a defendant's guilt while
being asked to impose a death sentence or who believe that evidence for and
against execution is equal.

The justices spent a lot of time struggling to understand the legal
positions taken by lawyers for the two death row inmates who preferred that
the high court stay out of their cases.

The states of Oregon and Kansas asked the justices to find that their
respective supreme courts wrongly extended the Eighth Amendment's
prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment to the two cases.

But the lawyers for the inmates threw the justices off by offering little
support for decisions by their courts that favored their clients.

"You win on the Eighth Amendment ... and when you leave the courthouse, you
say, 'I don't want it anymore,'" an incredulous Chief Justice John Roberts
told attorney Richard L. Wolf, who represents an Oregon inmate.

The Oregon court ruled that Randy Lee Guzek has a constitutional right to
present alibi evidence during a sentencing trial. The Kansas court used
Michael Lee Marsh's case to find the state's death penalty statute
unconstitutional because it could force juries to impose death sentences if
aggravating evidence of a crime's brutality and mitigating factors
explaining a defendant's actions are equal in weight.

Justice Sandra Day O'Connor waved off Wolf's insistence that Guzek should be
able to capitalize on "residual," or lingering doubts a jury may have after
conviction.

"I don't see how it's relevant to go in at sentencing and say there are all
these doubts," O'Connor said. "By finding (guilt) beyond a reasonable doubt,
there's not a reasonable doubt left."

In Marsh's case, Justice Stephen Breyer doubted that a jury has ever found
that evidence for and against a death sentence was of equal weight. "This is
a lawyer's hypothetical," he said.

For Guzek and Marsh, the arguments went downhill from there.

But the cases remain significant because they arise at a time when the court
is undergoing one of its biggest shake-ups in decades. The court has a new
chief and it is losing O'Connor, one of its most influential members, to
retirement.

O'Connor has often been the swing vote in capital cases, including a 5-4
decision earlier this year that overturned a ruling against a Pennsylvania
inmate by appeals court Judge Samuel Alito, President Bush's pick to replace
O'Connor.

In 1972, the high court struck down the death penalty because of arbitrary
sentencing procedures used by states. Four years later, justices said states
could use the death penalty if they added safeguards to sentencing
procedures.

But in recent years, O'Connor and other justices, including Ruth Bader
Ginsburg and John Paul Stevens, have expressed concerns that capital
defendants are not getting adequate legal representation.

Guzek was convicted by an Oregon jury for the June 1987 murders of Rod and
Lois Houser, the uncle and aunt of his former high school girlfriend. His
murder convictions have been upheld by the state's highest court. But
changes in Oregon law and mistakes by the trial judge led the Oregon Supreme
Court to overturn his death sentence three times.

Oregon Solicitor General Mary Williams argued that allowing Guzek to offer
evidence of his innocence during the sentencing hearing is improper because
it will force prosecutors to prove his guilt all over again.

The second case centered on Michael Lee Marsh, who was convicted in the June
1996 killings of Marry Anne Pusch and her 19-month-old daughter, M.P.

Marsh's lawyer, Rebecca E. Woodman, said Kansas law would force jurors to
impose capital punishment if they find aggravating factors offered by the
prosecution and mitigating evidence touted by the defense are equal.

It that happens, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy said, it's the defendant's fault
for not proving his case to the jury.

The cases are Oregon v. Guzek, 04-928, and Kansas v. Marsh, 04-1170


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