The Criminal Lawyer

18 U. S. C. §924(c)(1)(A) makes it a federal crime to have a gun on you while committing certain violent or drug-related crimes. There’s a mandatory 5-year minimum sentence just for carrying the gun. If you brandish the gun, it goes up to 7 years. If the gun goes off, it goes up to 10 years.

That’s what happened to Christopher Michael Dean. He was robbing a bank, and had a gun in his hand. He probably had his finger on the trigger like an idiot, because when he reached over a teller to grab money, the gun went off. Nobody got hurt, and it was clearly unintentional. Still, the gun went off, and he got the 10 year minimum for it.

In today’s Supreme Court decision in Dean v. United States, the Court was asked to find that the enhanced 10-year minimum requires some mens rea. Some intent or mental state demonstrating culpability. In a 7-2 decision, however, the Court found that Congress did not impose any such requirement. The majority ruled that this is a crime of strict liability, and so it doesn’t matter whether the defendant meant it to happen or not.

The Court didn’t have a lot of room here. Congress didn’t put anything about mens rea in the statute. It just says you automatically get 10 years “if the firearm is discharged.” It doesn’t say “negligently,” or “knowingly” or “intentionally” or anything like that. It’s written in the passive voice, and nothing else in the statute suggests that Congress meant there to be a mental-state element of this crime.

Dean argued that the law has a progression of ever-harsher penalties. And usually in the law, penalties are increased because of a more culpable mental state. So even though Congress didn’t say it in so many words, they must have intended this 10-year minimum to apply to intentional shootings, as opposed to accidental discharges.

But of course mental state is not the only element that increases culpability. Extra facts can do so as well. Intentionally hitting someone and bruising them is one thing, and intentionally hitting them and killing them is another. Here, bringing a gun to a bank robbery is a bad thing, because there’s a chance it is going to be used, and someone could get hurt. Taking the gun out and waving it around during the heist only increases the chances that someone could get hurt. And even a random shot increases the odds even more. So it makes sense that Congress increased the penalties based on the increased risk to others.

Writing for the majority, Roberts acknowledged that “it is unusual to impose criminal punishment for the consequences of purely accidental conduct.” However, strict liability crimes for unintentional conduct certainly do exist. Statutory rape is the most commonly-cited example. The law doesn’t care whether a man knew his sexual partner was underage, or even if he had every reason to believe that she wasn’t. His mental state does not enter into it, and he goes to jail for a crime he never intended, and never realized he was committing. The law takes the act so seriously that it is deemed indefensible, and so it doesn’t care whether it was committed by mistake. Although they are uncommon, there are plenty of strict liability crimes.

The reason why strict liability crimes are uncommon is alluded to in Dean’s case. When we punish a crime, what we’re really punishing is the offender’s mental state. If someone accidentally trips and stumbles into you, society doesn’t want to punish him. What for? There’s nothing to deter, nothing to retaliate against, nothing to rehabilitate — there was no wrongdoing. But if someone had a duty to be careful with his car, but wasn’t, and his negligence hurt you, then he’s going to be punished a little bit. And if he drove dangerously, with reckless disregard of the danger to others, then he’s going to be punished even more. And if he intentionally ran you over, backed up, and did it again, then he’s going to get the most punishment. Even if the injuries are the same in every case, the more wrongful the offender’s mental state, the more culpable he is, and the more punishment he’s going to get. And if there was no mental state, then there’s really nothing to punish.

The law increases punishment for increased culpability. Increased mens rea certainly means increased culpability.

But that’s not the only factor. In addition to the mens rea element, you have the offender’s actions to consider, as well as the harm that resulted. Increasingly risky actions, with the same mens rea, are increasingly culpable. And increasingly harmful results, with no change in mens rea or actus reus, are also increasingly culpable. Dean’s argument didn’t really seem to grasp this concept.

In his dissent, Justice Stevens made the same mistake that Dean did. Stevens argued that, because of the escalating sentences, Congress must have “intended to provide escalating sentences for increasingly culpable conduct,” and therefore “the discharge provision… applies only to intentional discharges.”

Time for Stevens to bone up on his logic. That syllogism is the same as saying “All men have noses. That person has a nose. Therefore, that person is a man.” It ignores the fact that women also have noses. Here, Stevens ignores the fact that mental state is not the only thing that enhances culpability.

Stevens also would have applied the common-law presumption of mens rea — that if something has been criminalized, there is presumed to be some mental-state element of the crime. Legislatures do often leave out the mens rea element from time to time, and the courts fill it in for them. But that’s only when the statute didn’t otherwise provide a basis for the enhanced culpability. Here, however, Congress did provide a basis for enhanced culpability, in the increased risk to others posed by the actions, regardless of whether those actions were intentional.

Breyer also dissented, based on the Rule of Lenity. He felt that the word “discharge” should be interpreted as meaning “firing,” which implies active use of the weapon, and therefore implies some kind of intent. But he conceded that the majority opinion had equally strong arguments for reading this as a strict liability crime. Given these competing interpretations, the Rule of Lenity would have the Court err on the side of the defendant.

However, just because a contrary position can be articulated, that does not mean that interpretation is necessarily ambiguous. The Rule of Lenity is only applicable when the statute is so ambiguous that it didn’t give fair warning of what could happen to you if you violated it. Here, according to the majority, there was no such ambiguity. The statute simply didn’t contain a mens rea element, and it didn’t imply one, and that fact is not grievously uncertain, and so the Rule of Lenity doesn’t apply.

So don’t rob banks. But if you do, don’t bring a gun along. But if you do, don’t wave it around. But if you do, keep your finger off the trigger. Because if it goes off by accident, you’re in big trouble.

The Supreme Court this morning exemplified exactly what’s wrong with the death penalty in this country. In a clear effort to avoid a decision that would impose a death sentence, the Court made a nonsense ruling so it could extend the course of appeals — appeals that have already run for three decades. The Court further delayed an outcome, continuing the stress and injustice of uncertainty to the defendant, the victims, and the criminal justice system.

One Saturday afternoon in 1980, Gary Cone robbed a Memphis jewelry store of about $112,000 worth of trinkets. He led a police officer on a high-speed chase through town and into a residential neighborhood. Abandoning his car, he ran off on foot. He shot a police officer who pursued him, and a citizen who tried to stop him. Re-thinking his abandonment of the getaway car, he tried his hand at carjacking, tried to shoot the driver, but was out of ammo.

Cone ran and hid all that day and into the next morning. He then tried to force his way into an old lady’s apartment at gunpoint, but she refused to let him in. The highly-intelligent Vietnam War veteran was foiled again. But later that Sunday afternoon, he broke into the home of an elderly couple, Shipley and Cleopatra Todd, aged 93 and 79, and brutally beat them to death.

After hiding the bodies, ransacking their home, and shaving off his beard, he made his way to Florida. There, he robbed a drugstore, got arrested, and admitted to killing the Todds and shooting the police officer.

In 1982, he was convicted of the murders, after unsuccessfully arguing that he had been on drugs and suffered from post-traumatic stress, and thus lacked the necessary mens rea. He didn’t really present a lot of evidence to back that up. The jury found him guilty, found the requisite aggravating factors, and sentenced him to death.

In yet another bleak example of modern American capital punishment, Cone spent the next 27 years filing appeal after appeal, up to the Supreme Court and back again.

This morning, the Supreme Court ruled on his federal habeas claim. Cone was arguing that the government violated his Brady rights, by withholding evidence material to his mental state.

On direct review in state court, the Tennessee Supreme Court had affirmed the conviction and the death sentence. Cone then filed a petition claiming various violations, including Brady violations. While the petition was pending, he got to see the prosecutor’s case file, and amended his petition to add more detailed Brady claims. He claimed that his thin evidence at trial would have been bolstered by this stuff, had he seen it at the time.

The reviewing court denied the petition, on the grounds that the Brady claims had already been considered and denied. Cone then sought a writ of habeas corpus, seeking relief for the alleged Brady violation. The Sixth Circuit said no to the Brady claim, because the state decision was based on grounds that weren’t applicable in federal court.

Appeals then went back and forth on other matters. In 2001, the Circuit granted relief for ineffective assistance of counsel, but the Supreme Court reversed that in 2002. In 2004, the Circuit granted relief for the use of an unconstitutional aggravating factor, but the Supreme Court reversed that one also.

Back in the Sixth Circuit in 2007 on remand, Cone once again raised the Brady claim. The Circuit again said no, that the claim was procedurally barred, because Tennessee had relied on independent state grounds in its determination of the Brady claim. And in any event, the prosecutor’s files weren’t Brady material in the first place, because nothing in them would have “overcome the overwhelming evidence of Cone’s guilt” and “the persuasive testimony that Cone was not under the influence of drugs.”

On cert to the Supreme Court this time around, Cone argued that the prosecutor’s file contained witness statements and police reports that would have corroborated his insanity defense during the guilt phase, and would have mitigated the aggravating factors during the sentencing phase. He argued that the Tennessee court’s decision did not rest on grounds that precluded federal review, contrary to the Circuit’s finding.

In its decision this morning, written for the majority by Justice Stevens, the Supreme Court ruled in Cone v. Bell that Cone was right — the Tennessee court’s decision did not rest on grounds that precluded federal review. Nevertheless, Cone was still wrong, because the prosecution’s files were not Brady material — the withheld documents simply were not material to any defense based on his mental state.

If Stevens had stopped there, this would have been a unanimous decision.

Instead, however, Stevens screwed up. “While we agree that the withheld documents were not material to the question whether Cone committed murder with the requisite mental state,” he wrote, “the lower courts failed to adequately consider whether that same evidence was material to Cone’s sentence.”

Say what? It clearly wasn’t material to the issue of guilt, but the appellate courts were too hasty in saying it was not material for sentencing? Stevens is basically saying, the files weren’t Brady, because they weren’t material to the issue of his mental state. But on the other hand, they might have been material to the issue of his mental state, so we’re remanding for a do-over.

So, in all these years of considering this very issue on appeal, the Circuit got it right when it decided that the files simply weren’t material. But in all these years of considering this very issue, the Circuit acted too hastily in deciding that the files weren’t material.

That simply doesn’t make sense, and in his dissent (joined by Scalia), Thomas makes that exact point. Alito felt the same way, and dissented to that extent, but concurred with the rest of the decision.

Chief Justice Roberts felt the same way, but wasn’t moved strongly enough to dissent, so he merely wrote a concurring opinion voicing his concerns. Instead, “this is what we are left with,” he wrote: “a fact-specific determination, under the established legal standard, viewing the unique facts in favor of the defendant, that the Brady claim fails with respect to guilt, but might have merit as to sentencing. In light of all this, I see no reason to quarrel with the Court’s ruling on the Brady claim.

That’s just weak. He and the rest of the majority clearly punted the issue. There is no distinguishing difference between the guilt phase or the sentencing phase, when determining whether something was Brady or not. Either it’s material or it isn’t. The issue in both was whether Cone’s mental state was impaired, and the courts seem to agree that the files were immaterial to that issue.

It’s clear what’s really going on, of course: the majority didn’t want to suck it up and just deny the claim. To do so would be to impose a death sentence, and the Stevens majority doesn’t want to do that unless there’s no way out for them. But they found a way out here. Not a particularly meaningful one, but it was all they needed. So they weaseled out of it, and kicked it back to the Sixth Circuit to do their dirty work for them.

We predict that the Circuit will simply make the same finding again on remand, and spill some more ink to spell out that its finding applies to both the sentencing phase as well as the guilt phase. Then today’s majority will be able to feel a little better about themselves when they affirm, and sentence Cone to death.

But delaying this foregone conclusion is unjust. It’s exactly what’s wrong with capital punishment in this country. There is no deterrent effect, because there is no predictability as to whether capital punishment will be carried out, and any such punishment is too far off in the dim and distant future to be meaningful. There is clearly no rehabilitation or attempt to rehabilitate, as the alternative is just life in prison. There is no just retribution, as society does not gain anything from punishment that neither certain nor contemporaneous.

Until the courts can work out a fair way of resolving death-penalty appeals justly and swiftly, the death penalty will continue to be an inhumane sentence in this country. Inhumane not only to defendants, but to the families of their victims, and to the community at large.

2009 New York Drug Sentencing Guide

What with all the drug law reforms happening in New York, we thought we’d put together a quick-and-easy guide to what they mean. Click here to view it in PDF form.

We used to do this all the time back when we were prosecuting cases with Special Narcotics. New York laws are so (unnecessarily) byzantine that a single chart really became necessary to figure out what they mean. We were often gratified to see nth-generation photocopies of our drug-law charts on various judges’ benches, and they were certainly popular in the office.

Standard warnings apply, of course: this is only a guide, and is not meant to be a substitute for legal research. And like everything else on this blog, it neither provides legal advice nor implies or creates an attorney-client relationship.

In an unusually mixed decision for the consensus-driven Roberts Court, the Supreme Court today ruled that federal public defenders can represent death-penalty clients at state clemency hearings. The more liberal justices said federal defenders could do so, but only if the state hearings followed a federal proceeding. Justice Thomas went further, saying that the law as written does not impose such a restriction, and in fact federal defenders would be allowed in any state capital case. Chief Justice Roberts agreed with the majority, but only insofar as the subsequent state proceedings are extra-judicial. Only Justices Scalia and Alito felt that federal defenders shouldn’t be allowed at state proceedings, period.

To get the result they wanted, the majority clearly made hash of the relevant statute, interpreting parts one way but other parts the opposite way, and then adding new interpretations to undo the absurdities that could have then resulted. Roberts allowed himself to justify the same outcome on a fine-point quibble. Only Thomas, Scalia and Alito had truly intellectually honest positions, but they didn’t fit the policy which the Court sought to advance. Once again, it was a case of making the law fit the Justices’ policy wishes — an undercurrent that often explains appellate decisionmaking.

At issue here was 18 U.S.C. § 3599, which provides for appointed counsel in federal proceedings. These lawyers are paid for out of the federal budget, when a client cannot afford a private attorney, and usually only handle matters in federal court. State court matters are typically handled by lawyers appointed and paid for by the state. Among other things, § 3599 sets forth what kind of matters a federally appointed lawyer can handle.

In this case, Harbison v. Bell, Edward Harbison was sentenced to death back in 1983 (yes, 26 years ago!) for beating a 62-year-old woman’s head to a pulp with a vase, after she surprised him while he was burgling her house.

Skipping over years of appellate back-and-forth, we come to a 2005 habeas petition in federal court. The Federal Defender Services of Eastern Tennessee were appointed to represent Harbison during this habeas proceeding. The petition was ultimately denied.

That having failed, Harbison tried for a clemency hearing in Tennessee state court. But he couldn’t get appointed counsel for such a hearing. The Tennessee Supreme Court had held that state law did not allow state-appointed lawyers in clemency hearings.

So Harbison’s federal defender filed a motion, asking that she be allowed to include the state clemency proceeding as part of her federally-compensated representation.

It wasn’t a huge stretch to ask for this, as §3599 permits federal defenders to represent their clients at “proceedings for executive or other clemency as may be available.” But Tennessee is in the 6th Circuit, which had previously construed §3599 as only applying to federal proceedings. So the district court denied the motion, and the 6th Circuit affirmed.

There being a split in the circuits on this issue — the 5th, 6th and 11th saying no federal assistance at the state level, but the 8th and 10th saying it’s okay — it was no surprise that the Supreme Court granted cert. Oral arguments were held in January.

The Court’s majority opinion is fairly straightforward: the plain language of §3599 doesn’t say anything limiting its scope to federal proceedings. In fact, its reference to “or other clemency” has to mean state proceedings, because federal clemency is strictly executive.

You can’t go out and get a federal defender for a state clemency hearing, however, unless you already had that federal defender to start with. In this case, the federal defender was on the case for the habeas proceeding, and the clemency one came afterward, so it was okay. But if the order had been reversed, the Court wouldn’t have permitted it.

Justice Stevens wrote the majority decision, and got the other four more liberal Justices to go along with the whole thing. Stevens was a little muddled, though, as his reading of the statute was dramatically different from clause to clause, and thus found that parts of it only apply to federal capital defendants.

Chief Justice Roberts agreed with Stevens’ result, but not with his reasoning. Roberts agreed that the federal defenders ought to be permitted at subsequent state clemency hearings. But he did not think that the plain language of §3599 said so. Just because the federal statute didn’t come out and say it was limited to federal cases, that doesn’t mean that’s not what Congress intended. Roberts felt (and Harbison conceded) that “it is highly unlikely that Congress intended federal habeas petitioners to keep their federal counsel during subsequent state judicial proceedings.”

Roberts astutely noted, however, that §3599 does not open the door to subsequent judicial proceedings. That would be a problem, because post-habeas judicial proceedings are by definition new matters, and §3599 only mentions “subsequent stages” of the federal matter. Clemency hearings, however, are non-judicial requests for mercy from the governor or a panel. We would expect this distinction to be raised for sure in some future case.

Justice Thomas was true to form, refusing to look outside the words Congress used to seek its intent, as “our task is to apply the text, not to improve upon it,” even if that produces “very bad policy.” He therefore felt the §3599 necessarily included state clemency proceedings, because the statute applied to people challenging either state or federal convictions, and state clemency is the only clemency available for state convictions.

In fact, Thomas went beyond the majority’s reading. The majority (and Roberts) assumed that parts of §3599 must be limited to federal proceedings, at least in some respects. But under Thomas-style interpretation it must be read to provide federal counsel “to indigent defendants in every criminal action in which a defendant is charged with a crime which may be punishable by death.” (Emphasis his.)

Justices Scalia and Alito were the only holdouts, finding that Congress was only talking about federal proceedings. After pointing out the obvious befuddlement of Stevens’ argument (as one would expect Scalia to do), they pointed out that “Section 3599 was enacted as part of a bill that created a new federal capital offense, and it is perfectly reasonable to assume that a federal statute, providing federally funded counsel, applies in federal proceedings only, even where the statute contains no such express limitation.” (Emphasis Scalia’s.)

As to the “or other clemency” on which the majority hung its hat, Scalia pointed out that the very congressional history which the majority felt was important “defeats the inference the Court wishes to draw.” The phrase “or other clemency” clearly did not imply or contemplate state proceedings, but was simply and unquestionably superfluous.

Voting 7-2, the Supreme Court today ruled that a defendant cannot appeal when the prosecution reneged on a plea bargain, unless the issue was preserved before the trial court.

In his majority opinion for Puckett v. U.S., Justice Scalia cleared up a split among the circuits. There had been differing opinions on whether this situation was one of the exceptions to the general rule requiring that issues be preserved below. He sort of signaled his take on the issue with his first sentence: “The question presented by this case is whether a forfeited claim that the Government has violated the terms of a plea agreement is subject to the plain-error standard of review set forth in Rule 52(b) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure.”

The facts of the case are going to sound familiar to anyone who’s been doing criminal law for very long. The defendant was indicted for armed robbery, and negotiated a plea deal. As part of the deal, the prosecutors promised to tell the court that he “has demonstrated acceptance of responsibility and thereby qualifies for a three-level reduction…” But then, after the plea but before sentencing, the defendant got in trouble again, this time for a scheme to defraud the Postal Service. The prosecutors changed their mind, in light of this new information, and told the sentencing court that the defendant should *not* get credit for accepting responsibility.

The defense attorney called foul, and reminded the court of the terms of the plea agreement. The judge turned to the prosecutor, who dismissed it as having been written a long time ago, and the new crime changed the situation. The judge decided that he couldn’t grant a reduction, and wouldn’t even if he could, given the new crime. He did impose a sentence at the low end of the range, however.

“Importantly,” to Scalia, “at no time during the exchange did Puckett’s counsel object that the Government was violating its obligations under the plea agreement by backing away from its request for the reduction. He never cited the relevant provision of the plea agreement. And he did not move to withdraw Puckett’s plea on grounds that the Government had broken its sentencing promises.”

On appeal, the Fifth Circuit held that error had occurred, and it was obvious, but it did not cause prejudice, so it was not “plain error.” Basically, the defendant couldn’t demonstrate that his ultimate sentence would have been any different, whether the prosecution had recommended the reduction or not, given the judge’s disinclination to grant it in the first place.

But there was a conflict among the circuits as to whether the plain-error test applies to unpreserved claims of breached plea agreements. So the Supreme Court granted cert.

In finding that Rule 52(b) does apply to unpreserved claims of breached plea agreements, Scalia started with the principle that plain-error review is rightly the norm for unpreserved errors, because “anyone familiar with the work of courts understands that errors are a constant in the trial process, and that a reflexive inclination by appellate courts to reverse because of unpreserved error would be fatal.” Exceptions to the normal rule do exist, of course. But should this situation be one of them?

Everyone took it as given that the government had broken its agreement. The issue is whether, in the absence of an objection below, anything could be done about it on appeal here.

The defendant first argued conceptually that the government’s breach of the plea agreement made that agreement void, and so voided the guilty plea. Scalia pointed out that breaching a contract does not make the whole contract void and invalid from the first; the contract remains enforceable.

The defendant next argued that there was precedent in *Santobello*, where a broken plea promise was grounds for reversal in the interests of justice, even though the breach did not affect the judge’s decision and thus the error was harmless. Scalia countered that whether or not an error is harmless is not the issue here, which is whether the error can be subjected to plain-error review. In *Santobello*, moreover, the issue clearly had been preserved below.

The defendant then argued that applying Rule 52(b) makes no sense, because objecting to a plea breach is futile; the prosecution’s wrongful action cannot be undone. The judge will have heard the improper recommendation, and can’t unhear it. Scalia stated that requiring an objection prevents defendants from “seeking a second bite at the apple” after waiting to see if they like the outcome or not. Also, some breaches are curable. And those that aren’t can be remedied by the trial court, such as by withdrawal of the plea, or by resentencing before a different judge.

The biggest point the defendant raised was that plea breaches fall within “a special category of forfeited errors that can be corrected regardless of their effect on the outcome,” so that even if there was no prejudicial effect, there still ought to be a reversal.

Scalia responded by categorizing the exceptions that do exist: errors that “necessarily render a criminal trial fundamentally unfair or an unreliable vehicle for determining guilt or innocence,” or that “defy analysis by harmless-error standards by affecting the entire adjudicatory framework,” or which involve “difficulty of assessing the effect of the error.”

None of those considerations applied here, so Scalia decided that this situation just didn’t fit as an exception to the general rule.

Justice Souter, joined by Justice Stevens, dissented. Although the defendant wasn’t terribly sympathetic, and although they agreed that the plain-error test is the right one to apply here, the dissenters felt that the Court was looking at the wrong effects.

The majority (and apparently the parties, too) looked at the effect of the error as merely being the length of the sentence, which probably wasn’t affected here. Souter, in contrast, saw the effect as being “conviction in the absence of trial,” or in the absence of “compliance with the terms of the plea agreement dispensing with the Government’s obligation to prove its case.”

The criminal conviction itself, not the length of sentence, is the effect on substantial rights according to Souter. Due Process and fundamental fairness require, “before the stigma of conviction can be imposed,” either a trial or a plea agreement honored by the Government. “It is hard to imagine anything less fair,” he stated, “than branding someone a criminal… because he entered a plea of guilty induced by an agreement the Government refuses to honor.” Sentencing after the prosecution breached a plea agreement would always, by definition, be plain error.

Justice Souter’s approach is, of course, attractive to those who value the fairness and integrity of jurisprudence. However, it is hard even for this defense attorney to agree that all such sentences are necessarily plain error, especially when an adequate remedy (getting to take one’s plea back) is available if the defense attorney is paying attention.

Few would deny that 32 years is a long time to spend in jail. It’s a long time to spend on death row, as well. But is delaying the execution — particularly when the delay is caused by the convict’s own appeals — cruel and unusual punishment violating the 8th Amendment?

This issue has sparked a fierce debate among the justices of the Supreme Court, three of whom put their positions in writing this week. The Court itself punted the issue, which was brought by William Lee Thompson, declining to hear his claim that 32 years on death row was cruel and unusual. But Justices John Paul Stevens, Stephen Breyer and Clarence Thomas took their disagreement out of the conference room and put it on paper.

Justice Stevens has been trying to get the Court to take on this issue since 1995, when he wrote a memorandum statement arguing that, although novel at the time, the proposition was “not without foundation.” Lackey v. Texas, 514 U.S. 1045 (1995). The state’s interest in retribution, he then mused, might be satisfied by the uncertainties a prisoner must suffer during a lengthy delay of execution (though why he felt that retribution was a proper purpose of punishment in a modern civilized society is a whole nother topic). Any deterrent purpose would be negligible after such a delay, he argued, and any penalty with little marginal return would essentially be gratuitous, and therefore cruel and unusual. Stevens also pointed out that other countries’ courts had found similar arguments to be persuasive.

In his statement this week, Stevens pointed out that the average execution happens nearly 13 years after sentencing, adding that “to my mind, this figure underscores the fundamental inhumanity and unworkability of the death penalty as it is administered in the United States.”

However, he went on to say that the delays are mostly the result of judicial process. “Judicial process takes time, but the error rate in capital cases illustrates its necessity. We are duty bound to [ensure] that every safeguard is observed when a defendant’s life is at stake.” He concluded that “our experience during the past three decades has demonstrated that delays in state-sponsored killings are inescapable, and that executing defendants after such delays is unacceptably cruel.”

We’re no fans of the death penalty, but Stevens’ argument is a bit too much of a non sequitur, even for us. His argument is essentially: A) Delay is necessary to ensure justice in capital cases, and B) Delay sucks, if you’re the one on death row, so therefore C) Delay is unconstitutionally cruel and unusual. Which is the opposite of A. It doesn’t follow.

Stevens doesn’t need it to follow, however, because his ulterior motive is to find the death penalty itself unconstitutional. He says as much in his conclusion (quoting a previous opinion of his, which itself echoed his argument in the 1995 statement).

Justice Breyer has been pushing this issue almost as long as Stevens has, joining the cause in 1999 when he opposed denial of cert. in two Florida cases, Foster v. Florida, 537 U.S. 990 and Knight v. Florida, 528 U.S. 990. His statement in this week’s case can be found here.

Like Stevens, Breyer clearly had an ulterior motive for wanting to grant cert. He also agrees that delay is necessary to ensure justice in capital cases, and the defendant caused most of the delay in his case with apparently meritless appeals.

However, critically important to Breyer is the fact that a portion of the delay was spent on a meritorious appeal. The trial judge didn’t allow some evidence at the sentencing hearing, but was compelled to allow it at a new hearing. The defendant got the same sentence of death.

Breyer’s argument is that the delay involved in the meritorious appeal was unconstitutionally cruel and unusual, because the appeal would not have happened but for the sentencing judge’s error, which is state action. The delay involved in the meritless appeals is a necessary safeguard of the criminal justice system, and is just fine.

Seriously, that’s his argument. Read it yourself. What Breyer really wanted was to undo the death sentence itself, which he felt wasn’t really deserved here.

So what about Justice Thomas? He took the other side, arguing the 32 years were spent in appellate litigation brought by the petitioner. He caused the very delay of which he now complains. He used a quote from Mike Luttig to make the point: “It makes a mockery of our system of justice . . . for a convicted murderer, who, through his own interminable efforts of delay . . . has secured the almost-indefinite postponement of his sentence, to then claim that the almost-indefinite postponement renders his sentence unconstitutional.”

Thomas felt that ulterior motives should not undercut the decisions of three separate juries, each of which held that the petitioner should be executed for kidnapping and horribly torturing a woman to death. The Constitution permitted the death penalty, and it was “the considered judgment of the people of Florida” that it was warranted here.

So all three justices seem to tacitly admit that the Supreme Court will take on a case, even if the arguments presented aren’t the right arguments, if it feels there is some other injustice that needs to be cured. Stevens and Breyer wanted to take on this case, because they felt the death penalty shouldn’t have been imposed — Stevens because he thinks it should never be imposed, and Breyer because he thinks the petitioner wasn’t as guilty as his co-defendant, who didn’t get the death penalty. Thomas didn’t see any injustice, so didn’t need to overlook the defendant’s chutzpah, though his dwelling on the merits of the sentence indicate that he might have done so in another case.

As of now, there is still no “Chutzpah Defense.” But don’t be surprised if some enterprising defense attorneys don’t craft some new versions of that argument, inspired by these three opinions.

A panel of three federal judges yesterday essentially ordered the State of California to reduce its prison population by as much as 57,000 people, because crowding is causing violations of prisoner rights. This doesn’t mean that wardens will be releasing thousands of hardened criminals back onto the streets, but it does raise questions of how to do it. In its ruling, the court accepted certain possible solutions, but rejected the one obvious solution of building more prison space.

The panel was made up of U.S. District Court judges Thelton Henderson and Lawrence Karlton, as well as Stephen Reinhardt of the Ninth Circuit. These judges are known for their left-leaning policies, so it’s hardly surprising, perhaps, that they accepted and rejected the solutions that they did. Increasing prisons is not widely regarded as a liberal position.

Although the panel only issued a “tentative ruling” in Coleman v. Schwarzenegger (link from the L.A. Times), this is probably going to be the final ruling, which is why they were confident enough to issue it formally. Unless it’s overturned on appeal, California is going to have to think up and enact some creative methods of carrying out the order, so the judges wanted to give the state time “to allow them to plan accordingly.”

The case, actually two cases, were brought by prisoners who alleged that crowding — not overcrowding, just crowding — was causing violations of their constitutional rights. These aren’t new cases — one has been in the remedy stage since 1995, and the other since 2002.

The dispute now was not over whether crowding exists, or whether care is unconstitutionally inadequate. Gov. Schwarzenegger issued a state of emergency in 2006, still in effect today, because overcrowding was putting prisoners’ and guards’ health and safety at risk. So the fact of crowding couldn’t be in dispute. Also not in dispute is a previous court ruling that the prisons were not providing constitutionally adequate medical and psychological care.

The issue here was whether the crowding was the main reason for the failure to provide adequate medical and psychological care. And if so, then what to do about it.

The court found that there aren’t enough clinical facilities, resources or personnel to accommodate all the inmates who needed them. The risk of the spread of infectious disease is also enhanced by bunking prisoners in gyms and other spaces not intended to be used for housing. Lots of experts testified that crowding was the primary cause of the problems.

That being decided, California wanted a chance to fix the problem without decreasing the prison population. California showed that, under monitoring by a receiver and special master during the past 11 years, the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation had already made significant improvements in conditions. So they asked for more time to fix these particular problems.

The court said no. They’ve had 11 years, and haven’t fixed the problem yet, so the court didn’t trust the monitors to fix it now. And anyway, “many of their achievements have succumbed to the inexorably rising tide of population.” Furthermore, California has no money to spare for new facilities, resources and personnel. Remedies for these cases have been tried since 1995, for 14 years now, and any future efforts of the receiver and special master could take many more years to have effect. The court felt that any further continuation of the already lengthy deprivation of constitutional rights would be wrong.

The court couldn’t think of any other relief that would work, other than reducing the prison population. Because scores of remedial orders had so far failed, “we are at a loss to imagine what other relief short of a prisoner release order a court could grant.”

So back to the question of how to do it. The court suggested various methods, such as “parole reform,” which we guess would mean changing parole rules, so that violators don’t necessarily go back to prison. Or “good time credits,” which could include both granting greater time off for good behavior, and letting more bad behavior count as good behavior. Or “evidence-based programming intended to reduce recidivism,” which simply means implementing services that are scientifically proven to actually reduce subsequent criminal behavior, as opposed to trying things that just sound good.

The court felt that building more prison space, the one obvious solution, was not something the court could order California to do, because it “may not be within the court’s general powers under the PLRA.” The PLRA, 18 U.S.C. §3626(g)(4) defines a “prisoner release order” as anything that has the effect of reducing or limiting the prison population. So the examples above would work. But one that merely reduces crowding — the problem to be solved here — doesn’t count, because it doesn’t reduce the number of prisoners.

We think that’s probably wrong. Building more prison space would solve the problem complained of. It may not be within the scope of the PLRA, but that’s not the sole authority that the court has. It has equitable power to order the state to do whatever works to stop the constitutional violations.

The court went on to say that California’s inmate population was about 200% of intended capacity, but reducing that population to about 120% to 145% would be sufficient. The court felt that this was the proper balance between concerns of public safety and prisoner rights.

The state immediately announced that it will appeal, of course. This will be one to watch, as pretty much every state is operating prisons beyond their design capacity, and fixes need to start happening soon. What happens here will influence how other states deal with the problem.

District Court Judge Percy Anderson sentenced Jeanetta Standefor to more than 12 years in prison on Tuesday, for running an $18 million Ponzi scheme that preyed on middle-class black investors.

Standefor, who is also black, solicited investments from 650 people around Pasadena who thought the money would go to buying properties about to go into foreclosure. To maintain the illusion of profits, Standefor transferred $14 million of the invested money to early investors. She also spent about a million per year on herself, according to AUSA Stephanie Yonekura-McCaffery. The operation was run through her company Accelerated Funding Group — a name that is practically probable cause in itself.

At the sentencing hearing in the Central District of California, victims told Judge Anderson how they had trusted Standefor with their savings, often their life savings, after she first befriended them. Investors were told that they could make 50% profits in the first month.

Standefor’s attorney, federal defender Charles Brown, argued for leniency. “She is not a serial killer,” he said. “She is not a drug dealer. This is not a person who needs to be thrown in jail and locked up to learn her lesson.” He added that she was a foster child “who worked her entire life to prove her worth. . . [but] she took shortcuts, and started taking from Peter to pay Paul, and that’s how we got here.”

Judge Anderson disagreed with the defense attorney’s characterization, telling Standefor that even if this was just a white-collar crime, she was just as guilty “as if you’d taken a gun out and held it to the victims’ heads.”

Judge Anderson then ruled on sentence. Shortly before he imposed the sentence, however, Brown made one last attempt for leniency. Urging the judge to reconsider, Brown pointed out that the sentence was not consistent with those for similar cases around the country. Brown argued that it seemed to him that blacks get harsher sentences, even when they are convicted of white-collar crimes.

“Not with me, they don’t,” interrupted the judge, who is also black. “This isn’t about being black.”

Standefor was then sentenced to 151 months in prison and almost $9 million in restitution.

This morning, the Supreme Court returned from its long break to issue a unanimous ruling in Chambers v. United States (No. 06-1120, Jan. 13, 2009). At issue was the crime of failure to report to jail, and whether that crime is a “violent felony” for the purposes of the Armed Career Criminal Act.

ACCA imposes a mandatory 15-year sentence for a felon who unlawfully possessed a firearm, and who also has three prior convictions for either drug crimes or violent felonies. A “violent felony” is defined by 18 U.S.C. § 924(e) as one that (among other things) “involves conduct that presents a serious potential risk of physical injury to another.”

The government wanted Chambers sentenced to the mandatory 15 years, based on prior convictions that included an Illinois crime of failing to report for weekend confinement.

Chambers said that the Illinois crime was not a violent felony for the purposes of ACCA. The government disagreed, arguing that the crime demonstrates a “special, strong aversion to penal custody,” and therefore was akin to a prison break. And prison escapes by their nature involve conduct that presents a serious potential risk of physical injury to another.

The Court didn’t buy that argument. Unlike a prison break, which is an active crime, failing to report is merely a crime of inaction, the Court said. The Court added that, sure, the defendant must have been doing *something* during his absence from jail, but there is no reason to believe that it was something risky to others. On the contrary, he’s probably less likely to draw attention to his whereabouts by “engaging in additional violent and unlawful conduct.” Aversion to penal custody, no matter how “special, is beside the point.”

The Court added that, of 160 cases involving a failure to report in a 2-year study by the Sentencing Guidelines Commission, “none at all involved violence — not during the commission of the offense itself, not during the offender’s later apprehension.” The government itself could only find three examples in 30 years.

Because of this, the Court held that this particular crime does not count as a violent felony for ACCA purposes, reversed, and remanded.

On Tuesday, the Fifth Circuit ruled on Jeff Skilling’s appeal from his conviction in the Enron case, upholding the conviction, but sending the case back for re-sentencing. Skilling may be able to raise a Brady issue on remand, as well, so the case doesn’t seem to be over. The opinion is 106 pages long, so we will summarize the ruling and its meaning for you here.

Skilling challenged his conviction, on the grounds that the government’s theory of “honest services” fraud was wrong. The government’s case let the jury decide on three purposes of Skilling’s conspiracy, one of which was to deprive Enron of the honest services of its employees. Because the jury returned a general verdict, if any one of those legal theories was insufficient, then the verdict must be reversed.

Skilling focused on the honest services theory, arguing that it was insufficient because his actions were done to give Enron a higher stock price, so it was in the corporate interest. He didn’t act in secret, and wasn’t self-dealing.

In making this argument, Skilling relied on the Circuit’s previous Enron case, United States v. Brown, 459 F.3d 509. In that case, a loan secured by Nigerian barges was fraudulently booked as revenue. The defendants in that case were specifically ordered by their CFO, Andy Fastow, to carry out the deal. Not only did they believe that Enron had a corporate interest in the scheme, and was a willing beneficiary of it, but their superiors ordered and approved their actions. Furthermore, they were paid more depending on whether they successfully achieved the goal.

The Court held that Skilling’s reliance on Brown was misplaced. The Brown rule absolves low-level employees of liability for honest-services fraud when:

1) the employer creates a particular goal,
2) the employer aligns the employees’ interests with the employer’s interest in achieving that goal, and
3) higher-level management authorizes or orders improper conduct in order to reach the goal.

Here, the first two conditions were met, but the third was not. Condition 1 was met when Enron created a goal of meeting Wall Street earnings projections. Condition 2 was met as Skilling got paid more if Enron met those projections. But condition 3 was not met, as there was no evidence that anyone besides Skilling authorized his conduct. The Board tacitly approved several of the underlying transactions, but never authorized him to engage in fraudulent conduct.

Because the third condition was not met, the Brown rule does not absolve Skilling of his liability. His conviction was therefore upheld.

—

With respect to sentencing, Skilling argued that the district court got the Guidelines calculation wrong, and that the sentence is unreasonable under §3553. The Court didn’t get to the §3553 issue, because it held that the Guidelines calculation was indeed incorrect, and a court has to do the Guidelines right before the §3553 factors come into play.

Skilling appealed a §3C1.1 two-level enhancement for obstruction of justice, and a §2F1.1(b)(8)(A) four-level enhancement for jeopardizing a financial institution.

The §3C1.1 enhancement was based on a determination that Skilling perjured himself as to his sale of Enron stock right after he resigned from the company. He’d tried to sell his stock while still CEO, but it would have had to be reported. So he resigned, then tried to sell his stock. But then September 11 happened, and he wasn’t able to sell until September 17. Skilling testified to the SEC that his order to sell on September 17 was due to his concerns over the market’s reaction to 9/11. The judge decided that was perjury.

On appeal, skilling didn’t argue that it wasn’t perjury. Instead, he argued that the court should have suppressed his SEC testimony in the first place, because the SEC misled him as to the fact that the investigation was criminal in nature.

The Circuit, however, pointed out that suppressible evidence can still be used at sentencing, and none of the exceptions to that rule apply here. The Court also found no justification for the original perjury. So the two-level enhancement was proper.

The §2F1.1(b)(8)(A) enhancement was based on the finding that Enron’s retirement plans were “financial institutions” for the purposes of that Guideline. Retirement plans aren’t specifically mentioned in the Guideline’s definition, which enumerates a long list of included entities. Various kinds of pension funds are included, however. And the list does include a catch-all “any similar entity.”

With respect to “pension funds,” the Guidelines don’t define the term. But a pension requires more than just employee investment for later payout — a pension has definitely determined payouts. Here, the retirement funds didn’t have specific benefits, they were just there as a pool for funding any benefits that might be given. So the Court decided they didn’t count.

With respect to the catch-all, apart from pension funds, the Guideline definition lists classic financial institutions like banks, investment houses, and the like. The Court did not want to expand the definition to declare every corporate retirement plan to be a financial institution.

Because the retirement plans weren’t financial institutions, the four-level enhancement was improper. So Skilling’s sentence was vacated, and the case was remanded for resentencing.

—

In addition to these main issues, the Court also rejected Skilling’s other challenges to his trial. Giving a “deliberate ignorance” instruction was at worst harmless error. None of the other jury instructions were problematic. The venue was proper. There was no prosecutorial misconduct.

Interestingly, however, the Court specifically stated that Skilling can raise Brady issues on remand. An FBI interview note showed that Andy Fastow didn’t think he had discussed a certain list with Skilling. This was omitted from the formal “302” report provided to the defense. Skilling claims that Fastow was talking about a list of talking points that Fastow had testified at trial he actually had discussed with Skilling.

The Circuit found this troubling, but the trial court never saw the notes or ruled on this claim, so nothing could be decided on appeal. But the Court instructed that “Skilling must bring this claim to the district court before we can address it.”

Therefore, Skilling might be able to get a new trial! If Skilling can show that there was a Brady violation, this case could be far from over. The government claims that the list in question is unrelated to the case, however, so we’re just going to have to wait and see.

OJ Simpson was sentenced today in Clark County District Court, after previously being found guilty of multiple crimes arising out of an armed break-in and theft at a Las Vegas hotel. The details can be found in any news outlet you fancy. But what sentence did he get? The headlines are all over the place.

Some sources say he got 12 years. Many say 15 years. Some say 33 years. Some say 9 years. What gives?

The reason for the confusion is the fact that OJ was sentenced on 10 counts, with many of the sentences running concurrent, and some running consecutive.

Concurrent sentences are served at the same time. So if you get sentenced on two counts, one for 5 years and the other for 6 years, to run concurrent, then you only face 6 years. But if they were to run consecutively, then you’d be serving 11 years.

So how does OJ’s sentence break down?

First, the concurrent sentences:

Count 1: Conspiracy to Commit a Crime: 1 year
Count 2: Conspiracy to Commit Kidnapping: 1 to 4 years (eligible for parole after 1 year, max of 4)
Count 3: Conspiracy to Commit Robbery: 1 to 4 years
Count 4: Burglary While in Possession of a Deadly Weapon: 2yrs 2 mos to 10 years
Count 5: First Degree Kidnapping with Use of a Deadly Weapon: 5 to 15 years
Count 6: First Degree Kidnapping with Use of a Deadly Weapon: 5 to 15 years
Count 7: Robbery with Use of a Deadly Weapon: 5 to 15 years
Count 8: Robbery with Use of a Deadly Weapon: 5 to 15 years

So the concurrent sentences have a max of 15 years, with eligibility for parole after 5 years.

Next, the consecutive sentences:

Counts 5 to 8 add 1 to 6 years to run concurrently with each other, but consecutive to the rest
Count 9: 1.5 to 6 years consecutive to Count 8
Count 10: 1.5 to 6 years consecutive to Count 9

So add 1 + 1.5 + 1.5 = 4 years to the parole eligibility, for a total of 9
Then add 6 + 6 + 6 = 18 years to the max number, for a total of 33

So OJ is eligible for parole in 9 years, and could conceivably serve a maximum of 33 years.

Hope that clears things up.

The respected journal Science will publish tomorrow a research study that suggests that the threat of punishment can keep people from getting in trouble. Stop the presses!

You’d think that this might have been studied before. But previous studies (focusing on freeloading vs. pro-social behavior) only focused on short-term outcomes. This new study, on the other hand, found in the long term the threat of punishment becomes deeply embedded in people’s subconscious, so that they come to fear getting in trouble.

You’d think this might have been too obvious to require study. But as Karl Sigmund of the University of Vienna explained to LiveScience.com, “the experimental work is extremely important and timely, as many researchers had voices concern whether punishment is not too costly a tool to promote cooperation.”

Clearly punishment isn’t the only tool out there to affect people’s behavior. Socialization, community involvement, and positive inducements are all strong factors. But we’re going to go out on a limb and say that, until something else comes along that satisfies society’s need for deterrence, removal (and, sadly, retribution), punishment’s going to remain part of our toolbox for a long long time.

[The research was performed by a team led by Simon Gächter at the University of Nottingham.]

Milberg LLP partners David Bershad and Steven Schulman were sentenced in federal court yesterday afternoon, each receiving 6 months in prison. Along with two other partners, they had been convicted for offenses arising our of the payment of kickbacks to lead plaintiffs in securities and shareholder class actions, which netted the firm more than a quarter of a Billion dollars in attorney fees.

These 6-month sentences were far less than what the other two partners were given earlier this year: William Lerach got 24 months, and Melvyn Weiss got 30.

At Bershad’s sentencing hearing, U.S. District Judge John Walter intitially indicated that he thought Bershad ought to get the same sentence as Lerach, as they had pled to the same conduct. Bershad’s lawyers sought probation, and the prosecution asked for 3 months in prison plus 3 months of community confinement. Apparently swayed by Bershad’s statement of remorse, letters of support, and the fact that Bershad’s plea was the first domino that led to the other pleas, the judge came down to the six-month jail term.

At Schulman’s sentencing hearing, the prosecution asked for a year in prison, as Schulman had taken longer to plea than Bershad, and so had provided less assistance. Schulman’s lawyer argued that the sentence should be no longer than Bershad’s, and that the delay in pleading guilty was due to attempts to work out a plea that would let Schulman keep his law license — notwithstanding the fact that there was no way he could conceivably keep that license given what had happened. Judge Walter wasn’t impressed with those arguments, but ultimately gave him the same 6-month sentence, taking into consideration the letters in support and the fact that Schulman had three young children who would be affected by a longer sentence.

Bershad had pled to conspiracy to obstruct justice, and to making false statements under oath. Schulman had pled to a racketeering charge. In addition to jail terms, each was sentenced to pay a $250,000 fine, on top of forfeitures of $7.75 million and $1.85 million, respectively.

Milberg LLP was formerly known as Milberg Weiss LLC, and as Milberg Weiss Bershad & Schulman LLP. At one time, it accounted for half of all securities class action settlements. The firm engaged in “strike suits,” wherein a corporation whose share price had fallen would be sued in a shareholder class action, with an individual shareholder identified as the class representative. The suits were brought for the purpose of settlement for nuisance value. Individual shareholders did not approach the firm, but rather the firm monitored the stock market and manufactured its own cases. To get individuals to to take the role of lead plaintiff, the firm would share its fees with them. The firm also paid kickbacks to stockbrokers who referred clients. At least one expert witness, specializing in estimating damages, was paid on a contingency-fee basis. Bershad and Schulman were indicted, along with the firm, in 2006 on various counts, including racketeering, mail fraud and bribery.

The Wall Street Journal today reports on a developing issue in sentencing law: are child porn consumers being sentenced disproportionately high?

Justice Department data, referred to somewhat inaptly by the Journal, lumps viewers of child porn with those who distribute it. In the group of those convicted of possessing, receiving or distributing child porn, the average sentence now is 80 months in prison. In 1997, the average sentence was about 25 months.

The rise in sentences has been matched by a huge increase in the number of child porn and other child-exploitation cases. Internet crime itself has vastly grown as the Internet has become more ubiquitous worldwide, and so has awareness of the crimes being committed. Child porn itself has only been a crime since 1990.

Some see an unfair disparity in the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines recommended sentences for those who view child porn and online predators who seek to engage in sex with children encountered in chat rooms. Of course, these are commonly the same people. But those who have not engaged in predatory behavior routinely receive enhanced sentences because of the sheer quantity of child porn materials they possess — it is commonplace for defendants to have huge collections of images and videos depicting sex acts being performed on children.

Sharing and receiving child porn is easier to catch, of course, than predatory behavior. Predators are typically caught after they try to go after a victim who turns out to have been an undercover agent. Not every chat room has an undercover, and not every predator picks out the undercover in the room. Subpoenas and data analysis, however, can lead to web sites and fserve locations where vast collections of child porn are stored and distributed. Monitoring the traffic of those sites can provide the IP addresses of those who downloaded or uploaded files. That leads to search warrants on homes, offices and computers, turning up the usually sizeable collections ultimately charged.

Not all images are going to be slam-dunk child porn. The prosecution must prove that an image really is pornographic, that it is a real photo or video and not simply PhotoShopped, and that it really depicts a child as opposed to someone who merely looks young. So prosecutors tend to bring cases against offenders with large quantities of photos, to make it easier to cull out a number of clear examples of child porn. Those with fewer photos, who thus don’t merit a sentence enhancement, are less likely to be charged in the first place, as prosecutors focus their resources on the strongest cases.

So it is unclear that there is an unfair disparity in sentencing. Mere possession may only have a base sentence of 5 years, as opposed to 10 years for the predator. But those most likely to be caught, and those most likely to be prosecuted, are the ones who are beyond the pale and for whom the Guidelines require enhanced sentences.

Readers are invited to comment.

Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, has suggested to the Washington Post that the Supreme Court may be getting ready to review “whether the death penalty is applied in a discriminatory discriminatory way, an issue the Court has not taken up for two decades.”

Dieter drew this conclusion from the Supreme Court’s denial of cert. yesterday in the capital punishment case Walker v. Georgia. As we pointed out recently, the Supreme Court has taken to using denials of cert. for raising questions on capital punishment.

The issue here is how thorough a court’s proportionality review must be, to ensure that a death sentence is not based on arbitrariness or discrimination. Justices Stevens and Thomas concurred with the denial of cert., but gave strongly opposed written opinions.

Stevens, the more liberal of the two, stated that Walker’s case was “troubling,” because it involved a black killer and a white victim. Numerous studies over the years have shown that black defendants are much more likely than whites to be charged with capital crimes, regardless of the race of the victim, but that capital crimes are also much more likely to be charged when the victim is white, regardless of the race of the killer.

Stevens felt that the Georgia Supreme Court wholly ignored its job, and only performed a perfunctory review of proportionality. It merely cited 21 similar death sentences and said that was good enough. The court didn’t describe or compare the facts of those cases, which differed in heinousness.

Thomas, on the other hand, said that Stevens was “simply wrong.” “There is nothing constitutionally defective about the Georgia Supreme Court’s determination. Proportionality review is not constitutionally required in any form.” Georgia has chosen to do some kind of proportionality review, and that’s fine, but the Supreme Court has never required that it do so. If Georgia wants to administer its own additional rule in its own way, that’s up to Georgia.

Thomas, the more conservative of the two, pointed out that the Court already looked at all of the arguments Stevens raised, and rejected them in McCleskey v. Kemp, 481 U.S. 279 (1987).

The fact that these arguments are being raised in written cert. opinions, however, is certainly giving some folks reason to believe that the Court may be interested in looking at them again, should the right case come its way.