Death Penalty Flashcards
Furman v Georgia – (1972)
death unconstitutional when applied in an arbitrary or discriminatory manner upon racial minorities. “Death is different”
Woodson v. North Carolina (1976):
mandatory death sentence violates 8th and 14th amendment rights
Gregg v Georgia (1976)
death penalty is back, “The careful and judicious use of the death penalty may be appropriate if carefully employed.”
Roper v. Simmons (2005):
Executing juvenile offenders who committed crimes under 18 is cruel and unusual punishment and prohibited under 8th amendment
Barefoot v Estelle (1983)
Psychiatrists can testify about dangerousness in CP cases
Estelle v Smith (1981)
Must apprise examinees of their rights, (where info is going, that attorney can be there, that they do not have to talk to you)
Murder trial with competency raised first; completed court order eval and was competent
Convicted, had sentencing with same jury
Dr from comp eval testified that he was danger to society
Fifth Amendment privilege violated: defendant was not advised he had a right to remain silent and that any statement made could be used against him at a sentencing proceeding , “When faced while in custody with a court-ordered psychiatric inquiry, respondent’s statements to Dr. Grigson were not given “freely and voluntarily without any compelling influences” and, as such, could be used as the State did at the penalty phase only if respondent had been apprised of his rights and had knowingly decided to waive them.”
Sixth Amendment violated: “The death penalty was improperly imposed on respondent because the psychiatric examination on which Dr. Grigson testified at the penalty phase proceeded in violation of respondent’s Sixth Amendment right to the assistance of counsel
It is a violation of one’s constitutional rights to have previous psychiatric testimony used at the sentencing phase of one’s capital murder trial to establish future dangerousness.
Buchanan v Kentucky (1987):
can have death qualified jury in joint trial, can have prosecution evaluations done when defendant has mental state plea (not 5th amendment violation)
Juveniles rape & murder case, Buchanan in adult court (1 stayed in juvenile, 1 in adult in joint trial with him)
With juvenile in join trial who was facing death penalty; Buchanan filed petitions that there be separate juries for the guilt and sentencing phases and that the jury hearing the guilt phase not be “death qualified,” because this violated his right to a fair and impartial jury, court denied
Filed motion since he did not pull trigger he could not be tried with death penalty since he had not intent to kill; this granted and he refiled above but that was denied
He pled “extreme emotional disturbance” so prosecution then introduced expert that he needed involuntary hospitalization not emotional disturbance;
Appealed he said this person could not testify b/c attorney not present during eval & violated 5th amendment and was not informed this would be used in trial but court denied since he introduced mental state defense
Issues in case: were his rights violated with death qualification of the jury and did his 5th amendment right get violated with the use of this report?
No: prosecutor allowed to death qualify the jury (Lockhart v. McCree, which authorizes “death qualification” prior to the guilt phase of a bifurcated capital trial, controls this case involving a joint trial in which the death penalty was sought only against petitioner’s codefendant), The Commonwealth had legitimate interests in holding a joint trial where the defendants’ conduct arose from the same events, and in having a jury that could properly find the facts and apply the law at both phases of the trial as to both defendants, and assess the appropriateness of the death penalty for the codefendant
Psych eval did not violate the petitioner’s fifth and sixth amendment rights because the petitioner requested a psychological evaluation and presented psychological evidence– prosecution may rebut this evidence with such a psychological evaluation, without the inclusion of incriminating evidence. Unlike Estelle v. Smith, the petitioner’s counsel himself requested the psychological evaluation and presumably discussed the evaluation with his client, so it is not arguable that the petitioner or his counsel could not anticipate its use.
Kansas v Cheever (2013)
prosecution may introduce psychiatric evidence to rebut mental state defense
Lawlor v Zook (2018)
defendant must be allowed to introduce evidence of past good behavior in prison
sentencing body should be presented with all possible relevant information to enable it to make a prediction about a defendant’s probable conduct in prison
Payne v. Tennessee (1991)
8th Amendment does not prohibit capital sentencing jury from considering impact of victim’s death upon surviving family members. Nothing is off limits
Lockett v Ohio (1978)
must consider all mitigating info before applying the death penalty
Strickland v. WA (1984)
ineffectiveness of counsel determined by whether counsel’s representation was objectively deficient and proceeding would have been different if counsel did not have deficient performance
Defense attorney did not get character witnesses or pre-sentence report because he thought judge was happy defendant took responsibility
Court- in this case counsel was not ineffective; although they made choices others had not taken, was reasonable enough to be not be considered under 6th amendment purposes and sentence would not have changed because facts were too strong against defendant in this case
Ford v Wainwright (1986)
8th forbids the execution only of those who are unaware of the punishment they are about to suffer and why they are to suffer it
Can execute MI individuals but only if they are competent to be executed
Panetti v. Quarternamn (2007)
important that individual understands the meaning of their punishment even if are aware of the facts, Rational understanding of the State’s motivation for their execution
Even though the evaluator quoted Panetti as saying that he believed the State was “in league with the forces of evil” and was executing him in order to “prevent him from preaching the Gospel,” evaluators also found Panetti to be aware of his crime, aware that he was to be executed, and aware of the State’s stated reason for executing him so court said competent to be executed
Court left question unanswered for specific case, did not undertake its own analysis of what kind of rational understanding the Eighth Amendment requires a death row inmate to have
the Court held that a prisoner may sometimes bring a habeas petition claiming mental incompetency even if he did not raise the claim in his first petition and that state courts can be held to have unreasonably applied a legal principle even if the principle was addressed to somewhat different facts than those of the case at hand
State v. Perry (1992)
forcible medication to facilitate his execution would constitute cruel and unusual punishment and fails to measurably contribute to the social goals of capital punishment
