Schriro v. Summerlin

SCOTUSCase
Litigants=Schriro v. Summerlin
ArgueDate=April 19
ArgueYear=2004
DecideDate=June 24
DecideYear=2004
FullName=Dora B. Schriro, Director, Arizona Department of Corrections v. Warren Wesley Summerlin
USVol=542
USPage=348
Citation=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=Appeal from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals
Subsequent=None
Holding=The "Ring v. Arizona" decision does not apply retroactively to cases already final on direct review.
SCOTUS=1994-2005
Majority=Scalia
JoinMajority=Rehnquist, O'Connor, Kennedy, Thomas
Dissent=Breyer
JoinDissent=Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg
LawsApplied=

"Schriro v. Summerlin", 542 U.S. 348 (2004)ref|citation, 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.

Facts

In April 1982, 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."

ee also

*List of United States Supreme Court cases, volume 542

Further reading

*cite journal |last=Johnson |first=Marc E. |authorlink= |coauthors= |year=2005 |month= |title=Everything Old is New Again: Justice Scalia's Activist Originalism in "Schriro v. Summerlin" |journal=Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology |volume=95 |issue=3 |pages=763–808 |issn=00914169 |url= |accessdate= |quote=
*cite journal |last=Russell |first=C. Ryan |authorlink= |coauthors= |year=2004 |month= |title=Death Anyways: Federal Habeas Corpus Retroactivity Law and the Decision in "Schriro v. Summerlin" |journal=Oregon Law Review |volume=83 |issue= |pages=1389–1435 |id= |url=http://www.law.uoregon.edu/org/olr/archives/83/83russell.pdf |accessdate= |quote=

External links

* [http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=000&invol=03-526 Text of the case on Findlaw]