Justices revisit death sentences

WASHINGTON - Supreme Court justices contemplated ordering new sentences for more than 100 convicted killers Monday in a case harking back 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 mood was restrained as the justices heard arguments in the most far-reaching death penalty issue this term. At least four states could be forced to settle for prison sentences for the inmates or spend millions of dollars for new sentencing hearings.

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.

Summerlin's lawyer 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 vs. 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, 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.

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.

"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 lawyer 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.

- Refused to consider if Texas Republicans went too far last year in their strategy to enact new GOP-friendly congressional boundaries, a case that is among multiple appeals at the court over the Texas redistricting.

- Rejected an appeal of an Indiana law officer fired for refusing to work at a casino. The state trooper had said that the gambling enforcement assignment would force him to violate his religious beliefs.

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