Number: RS21909
Title: Capital Punishment: Summary of Supreme Court Decisions of the 2003-2004 Term
Authors: Paul Starett Wallace, Jr., American Law Division 
Abstract: In the 2003-2004 term, the Supreme Court decided in Banks v. Dretke, that Delma Banks should be allowed to raise Brady challenges based on failure by the prosecution to release exculpatory evidence in federal habeas proceedings even though they had been fully presented to the state courts. In Nelson v. Campbell, it ruled that a challenge to the method of execution under 42 U.S.C.  1983 is not equivalent to a habeas corpus petition, provided that the petitioner is not contesting his imprisonment (the petitioner claimed that the Alabama prisons intended use of a cut-down procedure to access his veins for a lethal injection violated his Eighth Amendment protection against cruel and unusual punishment) and that section ( 1983) is appropriate for his Eighth Amendment claim seeking a temporary stay and permanent injunctive relief. In Beard v. Banks, the Court held that the petitioner could not benefit from retroactive application of its 1988 decision in Mills v. Maryland regarding consideration of less than unanimously-found mitigation. In Schriro v. Summerlin, the Court decided against retroactive application of its 2002 decision in Ring v. Arizona, regarding the right to have a jury find any fact necessary for imposition of the death penalty. In Tennard v. Dretke, the Court held that the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit used an improper legal standard when it refused to allow Tennard to appeal the district courts decision denying him a writ of habeas corpus based on his failure to establish a nexus between his crime and evidence of his low IQ. In Mitchell v. Esparza, (per curiam) it concluded that the Ohio Court of Appeals had properly subjected the habeas petitioners claims to harmless error, when, although the sole offender, he argued he had not been charged with being the principal offender.
Pages: 6
Date: August 12, 2004