138 S.Ct. 2567
SCOTUS2018Background
- Two petitions for certiorari (Richard Gerald Jordan and Timothy N. Evans) were denied; Justice Breyer dissented from the denials and authored the opinion summarized here.
- Jordan has been under a death sentence for ~42 years, spent most of that time on Mississippi’s death row in prolonged solitary and allegedly squalid conditions; multiple prior death sentences were vacated and resentencing occurred several times.
- Evans was sentenced to death in Mississippi’s Second Circuit, which has disproportionately imposed death sentences in the State.
- Breyer highlights national trends: increasing delays from sentence to execution, an aging death-row population, and a dramatic concentration of death sentences in a small number of counties.
- Breyer emphasizes arbitrariness from varying state definitions of death-eligible murders (e.g., felony-murder/robbery aggravators in Mississippi) and recent exonerations that bear on reliability (multiple exonerations since 2015).
Issues
| Issue | Plaintiff's Argument | Defendant's Argument | Held |
|---|---|---|---|
| Whether decades-long delay before execution violates the Eighth Amendment | Jordan: excessive delay (≈42 years) and prolonged isolated confinement add cruel and unusual punishment | State: (implicit) long delay alone does not render execution unconstitutional; procedure has been followed | Certiorari denied; Breyer would grant to review delay/cruelty claims |
| Geographic arbitrariness in imposition of death penalty | Evans: Second Circuit in Mississippi (and a few counties nationwide) disproportionately imposes death sentences; result is arbitrary | State: local prosecutorial discretion and statutory scheme govern sentencing distribution | Certiorari denied; Breyer highlights arbitrariness and would review |
| Whether state death-eligibility definitions are too broad or inconsistent | Petitioners: statutes (e.g., felony robbery murder) allow death sentences without intent-to-kill findings, producing overbroad death eligibility | State: (implicit) statutory aggravators are lawful under current precedents | Certiorari denied; Breyer stresses inconsistent aggravators nationwide and would examine reliability |
| Whether contemporary administration of death penalty lacks requisite reliability (including due to wrongful convictions) | Petitioners: recent exonerations and data on rare executions vs. many death sentences show unreliability and risk of executing innocent persons | State: (implicit) existing procedures and safeguards suffice; isolated exonerations do not demonstrate system-wide failure | Certiorari denied; Breyer cites exonerations and declining executions as evidence that review is warranted |
Key Cases Cited
- In re Medley, 134 U.S. 160 (describing the extreme terror of pre-execution confinement)
- Woodson v. North Carolina, 428 U.S. 280 (1976) (invalidating mandatory death sentences)
- Skipper v. South Carolina, 476 U.S. 1 (mitigating evidence at sentencing may be constitutionally required)
- Roper v. Simmons, 543 U.S. 551 (2005) (limiting death penalty to the most culpable offenders)
- Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U.S. 304 (2002) (Eighth Amendment bars execution of intellectually disabled defendants)