Supreme Court cases

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday agreed to hear two cases of some notoriety.

First of all, is the question as to “whether someone convicted of murder can then offer evidence at the sentencing hearing that casts doubt about culpability.” Oregon v. Guzek, docketed as Case 04-928 is a death penalty case. FindLaw has an article posted saying that “the Supreme Court has been silent on this particular issue—that a convicted murderer doesn’t have a constitutional right to a jury instruction compelling jurors to consider alibi evidence during sentencing—since 1988, and many lower courts have interpreted that ruling as meaning they don’t.

A second case, backgrounded in a Law.com article this morning, will consider “whether a Michigan statute barring the state from paying for appeals by indigent defendants who plead guilty discriminates against the poor.” (Halbert v. Michigan, Case 03-10198). According to the Law.com article, Michigan is the only state with such a law, but there are “17 states supporting Michigan’s position and advocates for the poor are worried that those states, one of which is Ohio, will in turn pass similar legislation is the Michigan statute prevails. An ALR article entitled “Right of Indigent Defendant in Criminal Case to Aid of State as Regards to New Trial or Appeal,” appeared at 55 ALR2d 1072.

Finally, there was an article in the April 19th. U.S. Law Week about “The Safe Access to Drug Treatment & Child Protection Act” (H.B. 1528) “severely limiting federal judges’ authority to impose sentences below the standard range of punishment prescribed by the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines….. Section 12 of the bill would do this by forbidding judges to rely on any of the factors identified as possible mitigating circumstances in the guidelines or in 18 U.S.C. §3553 (a) as a basis for imposing sentence below the standard guideline range.”