Court again upholds California capital instruction
on Nov 13, 2006 at 10:02 am
In a 5-4 ruling, the Supreme Court on Monday found — for a third time — that California’s special “catchall” instruction to juries in death penalty cases provides enough opportunity for jurors to consider all favorable evidence for the accused. The instruction, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote for the majority, goes far enough to assure that the jury will not only consider favorable evidence about the crime itself, but about evidence that the individual would not be dangerous in the future if his life were spared. The ruling in the case of Ayers v. Belmontes (05-493) was the only opinion on the merits issued Monday.
The Ninth Circuit Court reversed the death sentence of Fernando Belmontes for the second time after the Supreme Court had returned the case to it. The Circuit Court said the Supreme Court’s prior review of the catchall instruction (“factor k”) had only found that it was sufficient to cover mitigating evidence about the accused’s culpability for the crime, and not evidence about his capacity to adjust well to life in prison.
The Court previously rejected challenges to “factor k” in Boyde v. California in 1990 and Brown v. Payton in 2005.
Kennedy’s opinion reversing the Circuit Court was joined by Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., and by Justices Samuel A. Alito, Jr., Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. Justices Scalia and Thomas filed a concurring opinion. Justice John Paul Stevens dissented, in an opinion joined by Justices Stephen G. Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and David H. Souter.
The Court on Monday granted no new cases for review, while denying a number of new cases — including an appeal by Michael Skakel challenging his conviction and 20-year life prison sentence for a 1975 murder that was prosecuted 25 years later. The case was Skakel v. Connecticut (06-52). Skakel argued that the Connecticut Supreme Court had authorized his prosecution for the crime by unconstitutionally extending retroactively the deadline for the charges to be pursued. Skakel’s defense team has a petition for a new trial pending in state court.
Here, in summary, are some of the other cases denied review:
BASF v. Peterson (06-144), a new case on the authority of states to limit the use of labels on federally regulated crop-protection chemicals. The Minnesota Supreme Court found a state law on the subject was not preempted by federal law.
McClain, et al., v U.S. (06-160), on whether evidence may be used in a criminal case if police obtained the evidence based on a warrant that in turn had relied upon evidence gathered in an earlier, illegal search. The Sixth Circuit Court found the evidence was admissible under the “good faith” exception to the “exclusionary rule” under the Fourth Amendment.
Perdue v. Brown (06-213), an attempt by an author, Lewis Perdue, to revive a copyright lawsuit against the best-selling novel by Dan Brown, “The DaVinci Code,” and the popular movie of the same name. The Second Circuit rejected the copyright claim, finding insufficient similarity between Brown’s work and Perdue’s earlier novel, “Daughter of God.”
Qwest Communications v. New England Health Care Group (06-343), an attempt to get the Court to clarify when lawyers in a private lawsuit may obtain access to internal corporate documents that the other party had turned overe to government investigators. The Tenth Circuit upheld a District Court order requiring Qwest to hand over such documents that had been submitted to federal securities regulators, when the same documents were later sought for use in a series of civil lawsuits against Qwest.
Once again, the Court took no action on an important student free-speech case, Morse v. Frederick (06-278), involving discipline of a public school students for displaying a banner with a pro-marijuana message during a school-relatd event.
