RULES CLARIFIED IN MAJOR DEATH PENALTY RULING
Alito Opinion Vindicated
In a 5-4 decision announced today in the California case of Brown
v. Sanders, the United States Supreme Court overturned a Ninth Circuit
ruling and cleared up a longstanding point of confusion on the review
of death penalty cases. In 2004, the Ninth Circuit overturned Sanders'
sentence because two of the four "special circumstances" qualifying
him for the death penalty were later held invalid. When the Supreme
Court agreed to review that ruling, the Sacramento-based Criminal Justice
Legal Foundation filed an amicus curiae brief, arguing that a
jury's finding of any valid special circumstance qualifies the murderer
for a death sentence, and all evidence related to the circumstances
of the crime can be considered.
In his majority opinion, Justice Antonin Scalia writes, "If the
jury finds the existence of one of the special circumstances, it is
instructed to ‘take into account' a separate list of sentencing
factors describing aspects of the defendant and the crime. These factors
include, as we have said, [t]he circumstances of the crime of which
the defendant was convicted in the present proceeding." Because
the invalid factors were not needed to make Sanders eligible for the
death penalty and because they were included in a valid factor for the
final sentencing decision, they made no difference in the actual case
and the sentence can be upheld.
"Prior Supreme Court decisions had made the rules unclear on
this point," said Kent Scheidegger, Legal Director of the Criminal
Justice Legal Foundation. "This case provided the Supreme Court
with an opportunity to clarify the rules and assure that valid sentences
will not be overturned for reasons that had no actual effect on the
sentence," he added. The Supreme Court's decision utilized
arguments introduced in the Foundation's brief, which was also cited
in Justice Breyer's dissenting opinion.
The confusion in the Supreme Court precedents has led to varying opinions
in the lower courts. A 1995 opinion by Supreme Court nominee Samuel
Alito took substantially the same approach as today's Supreme Court
opinion. Alito has been fiercely criticized for that opinion by opponents
of the death penalty, but it was vindicated today.
Today's case involves Sanders' 1982 conviction and death sentence
for the murder of a Bakersfield woman and the attempted murder of her
boyfriend during a robbery. California law requires the jury to find
at least one designated special circumstance related to the murder in
order to qualify the murderer for a death sentence. In Sanders' case
the jury found four: murder during a robbery, murder during a burglary,
murder of a witness to prevent testimony, and murder that was especially
heinous, atrocious, and cruel.
Sanders and an accomplice were found guilty of beating Janice Allen
to death and attempting to kill her boyfriend Dale Boender in 1981.
Sanders had attempted to rob the couple several weeks earlier, but failed.
Fearing that the couple would identify him to police, Sanders and the
accomplice forced themselves into the victims' apartment, bound them
with electrical cord, and beat their skulls in with a heavy blunt object.
The murderers then ransacked the apartment. Allen died of brain trauma
resulting from a severe skull fracture. Boender also suffered a fractured
skull, but survived.
At the trial, Boender and Brenda Maxwell, a friend of Sanders' who
helped plan the robbery, identified Sanders as a participant in the
crimes. The first trial resulted in a hung jury, but the case was later
retried, and a jury convicted Sanders and sentenced him to death in
January 1982.
In 1990 on direct appeal, the California Supreme Court declared the
burglary and "especially heinous" special circumstances invalid,
but upheld Sanders' death sentence because there remained two valid
special circumstances to support it. The Court determined that because
the sentencing jury is allowed to consider all aggravating factors related
to the crime, the burglary and cruelty of the murder were properly introduced
by the prosecution and did not prejudice Sanders' case.
After 11 years of review of his claims in the state courts, Sanders'
habeas corpus petition was denied by the federal District Court in 2001.
Three years later, a panel of the federal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals
reversed the lower court. The Court of Appeals disagreed with the way
the California Supreme Court applied U. S. Supreme Court precedents
in its decision to uphold the sentence. The precedents in question prescribed
how to determine when aggravating circumstances, later ruled invalid,
affected the jury's sentencing decision.
In its amicus curiae brief, the Foundation argued that, because
the law allows all the circumstances of a murder to be considered at
the sentencing hearing, the California Supreme Court was correct in
its analysis regarding the burglary and the especially cruel nature
of the murder of Janice Allen. These facts were properly introduced
before the jury, which found two valid special circumstances qualifying
Sanders for the death penalty. The invalid circumstances did not place
anything before the jury that was not there under other valid sentencing
factors.
CJLF Legal Director Kent Scheidegger is available
for comment at (916) 446-0345.
The Criminal Justice Legal Foundation helped win seven U. S. Supreme
Court decisions benefitting law enforcement and public safety over the
Court's 2004/05 term.
The Foundation's brief in this case is located at:
http://www.cjlf.org/briefs/Sanders.pdf
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