100 death sentences hinge on high court

WASHINGTON -- A case considered by the Supreme Court Monday could overturn death sentences of more than 100 inmates, the most far-reaching capital punishment issue this term in a follow-up to a 2002 ruling that made juries, not judges, final arbiters of the death penalty.

Capital punishment cases often are the most dramatic at the high court, but the justices were subdued as they contemplated ordering new sentences for convicted killers in at least four states.

The court ruled two years ago that the constitutional right to a trial by jury means that jurors should weigh factors that determine whether a particular killing merits death or life in prison. Now the court must decide whether to apply that to old cases.

Justice Stephen Breyer worried about "the spectacle of the man going to his death having been sentenced in violation of that principle."

The court will settle the matter in the case of Arizona prisoner Warren Wesley Summerlin, sentenced more than 20 years ago by a judge who later lost his job because of a drug problem, one of several elements that makes the case read like pulp fiction.

Summerlin was arrested after an anonymous caller told police that a relative had a vision that Summerlin killed a bill collector who came to Summerlin's house in 1981 to collect a payment for a piano. The victim was found bludgeoned to death in her car trunk. She also had been raped.

Summerlin's attorney reached a deal for a plea bargain with a prosecutor, but the deal fell through after the two had a secret sexual relationship.

Justices did not get into the details of his case, but Summerlin's attorney, Ken Murray, pointed out the judge entrusted to decide Summerlin's sentence had his own problems.

"Judges are human. They have human frailties, as this case shows," Murray said.

Juries are preferable, he said, because they represent the community better than a single judge.

Justice Antonin Scalia noted jurors have human frailties, too.

The San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned Summerlin's sentence last year, citing the 2002 Supreme Court ruling, Ring v. Arizona, which forced changes in the death penalty laws of Arizona, Montana, Idaho, Nebraska and Colorado, because those states left it to judges to determine whether a killer should be executed. The ruling also cast doubt on death-sentencing procedures in other states that used a combination of juries and judges to impose death sentences.

The Supreme Court's decision on retroactivity, expected by the end of June, could affect the cases of more than 85 Arizona death row inmates, including Summerlin, and about 25 others in Idaho, Montana and Nebraska, attorneys said. Other states that might be affected include Alabama, Delaware, Florida, Indiana and Nevada.

Justice John Paul Stevens said Summerlin was sentenced to death by an unconstitutional procedure.

John Todd, an assistant Arizona attorney general, said the sentencing change required by the court two years ago was not significant enough to warrant reopening old cases.

That is the ultimate question for the Supreme Court, which does not automatically make its rulings retroactive but sometimes do if they involve "watershed" rules.

"The court has to draw a line somewhere," said Beth Brinkmann, a Washington lawyer who filed a brief backing Summerlin for the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. "How unsettling to think that whether or not an individual is going to be convicted and executed depends on when his case arose."

Bush administration attorney James Feldman warned that a ruling for Summerlin could put in doubt convictions in noncapital cases handled by judges, a scenario that seemed to worry several of the justices.

Breyer, for example, asked whether the justice system would be disrupted by reversed sentences.

Breyer and the court's three other more liberal members have anchored decisions in recent years that put restrictions on capital punishment. They persuaded their colleagues to consider next term whether it is unconstitutional for states to execute people who committed their capital crimes when they were juveniles.