Subsequent history None | End date 2004 | |
Full case name Dora B. Schriro, Director, Arizona Department of Corrections v. Warren Wesley Summerlin Citations 542 U.S. 348 (more)124 S. Ct. 2519; 159 L. Ed. 2d 442; 2004 U.S. LEXIS 4574; 72 U.S.L.W. 4561; 17 Fla. L. Weekly Fed. S 425 Prior history Appeal from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals Majority Scalia, joined by Rehnquist, O'Connor, Kennedy, Thomas Dissent Breyer, joined by Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg People also search for Whorton v. Bockting, Ring v. Arizona | ||
Schriro v. Summerlin, 542 U.S. 348 (2004)[1], was a case in which the United States Supreme Court held that a requirement that a different Supreme Court decision requiring the jury rather than the judge to find aggravating factors would not be applied retroactively.
Contents
Facts
In April 1981, Warren Wesley Summerlin killed a creditor who had come to his home in Phoenix, Arizona, to inquire about a debt. He was later convicted of first-degree murder and received a death sentence. Under Arizona law at the time, a jury decided the question of guilt but a judge sitting without a jury decided the question of penalty after receiving evidence regarding aggravating and mitigating factors. The Arizona Supreme Court affirmed the death sentence. While the appeal in his habeas corpus case was pending in the Ninth Circuit, the Supreme Court decided Ring v. Arizona, 536 U.S. 584 (2002), which held that such aggravating factors had to be proved to a jury rather than a judge. The Ninth Circuit ruled that the Ring decision applied to Summerlin's case even though Ring was decided after Summerlin's conviction had become final on direct review. The state appealed this decision to the Supreme Court.
Result
The Court, in an opinion by Justice Scalia, reversed the decision of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, and stated that "we give retroactive effect to only a small set of 'watershed rules of criminal procedure implementing the fundamental fairness and accuracy of the criminal proceeding.' That a new procedural rule is 'fundamental' in some abstract sense is not enough; the rule must be one 'without which the likelihood of an accurate conviction is seriously diminished."