Ring v. Arizona

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Ring v. Arizona

Argued April 22, 2002
Decided June 24, 2002


Full case name:	Timothy Stuart Ring v. Arizona

Citations:	536 U.S. 584; 122 S. Ct. 2428; 153 L. Ed. 2d 556; 2002 U.S. LEXIS 4651; 70 U.S.L.W. 4666; 2002 Cal. Daily Op. Service 5594; 2002 Daily Journal DAR 7047; 15 Fla. L. Weekly Fed. S 464

Prior history:	On writ of cert. to the Sup. Court of Arizona. State v. Ring, 200 Ariz. 267

Holding

Allowing sentencing judge, without jury, to find aggravating circumstance necessary for imposition of death penalty held to violate right to jury trial under Federal Constitution's Sixth Amendment.

Court membership

Chief Justice: William Rehnquist
Associate Justices: John Paul Stevens, Sandra Day O'Connor, Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, David Souter, Clarence Thomas, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer

Case opinions

Majority by: Ginsburg
Joined by: Stevens, Scalia, Kennedy, Souter, Thomas
Concurrence by: Scalia
Joined by: Thomas
Concurrence by: Kennedy
Concurrence by: Breyer
Dissent by: O'Connor

Laws applied

U.S. Const. amend. VI

Ring v. Arizona, 536 U.S. 584 (2002), is a case in which the United States Supreme Court applied the rule of Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466 (2000), to capital sentencing schemes, holding that the Sixth Amendment requires a jury to find the aggravating factors necessary for imposing the death penalty. Ring overruled a portion of Walton v. Arizona, 497 U.S. 639 (1990), that had previously rejected this contention.

[edit] Facts of the case

On November 28, 1994, an armored car parked in front of Arrowhead Mall in Glendale, Arizona, was robbed at gunpoint. The thieves forced the driver to take the van to a church in nearby Sun City, where they shot the driver and made off with $562,000 in cash and $271,000 in personal checks. An informant tipped the police off to Timothy Ring and two of his friends, who had recently made expensive purchases such as a new truck. Police eventually discovered that Ring was the ringleader of the operation. Ring was later charged with capital first-degree murder under Arizona law.

The jury eventually convicted Ring of first-degree murder under a felony murder theory. But Ring could not be sentenced to death without further findings, and Arizona law provided that the judge alone would make these findings. After a sentencing hearing, at which Ring's accomplices testified, the judge found that two aggravating factors applied: that Ring had committed the murder in expectation of pecuniary gain, and that he had committed the murder in an especially heinous, cruel, or depraved manner. Although he found that Ring had a "minimal" criminal record, the judge concluded that this did not outweigh the aggravating factors, and sentenced Ring to death.

By the time Ring's case was decided by the Arizona Supreme Court, Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466 (2000), had been decided. In Apprendi, the Court had held that any fact that increases the punishment for a crime above the statutory maximum punishment must be either submitted to a jury and proved beyond a reasonable doubt or admitted by the defendant. However, in Walton v. Arizona, 497 U.S. 639 (1990), the Court had explicitly ruled that the Sixth Amendment did not require jury finding of aggravating factors in Arizona's capital sentencing scheme. As the Arizona Supreme Court saw it, Apprendi undercut the holding of Walton, yet Walton was directly controlling precedent from a higher court on a matter of federal constitutional law. The Arizona Court had no choice but to affirm Ring's conviction and death sentence. The U.S. Supreme Court granted Ring's petition for certiorari.

[edit] Apprendi applies to capital sentencing schemes

Writing for the majority, Justice Ginsburg began with an important characterization of Arizona's capital sentencing scheme. Based solely on the jury's verdict that Ring was guilty of first-degree murder, the greatest sentence for which Ring was eligible was life in prison. In order to satisfy the jury-trial requirement of the Sixth Amendment as interpreted by Apprendi, additional factfinding was required. Yet in Walton, the Court had expressly held that Arizona's capital sentencing scheme was not subject to such a requirement.

This characterization all but dictated the result. Prior decisions, including Walton, had distinguished between the "elements" of a crime and "sentencing factors." The Sixth Amendment required a jury to find elements but allowed a judge to determine sentencing factors. Under Walton, the aggravating factors were "sentencing factors" because they were the modern vehicle by which judges expressed their traditional sentencing discretion in capital cases. But after Apprendi, which built on Jones v. United States, 526 U.S. 227 (1999), the relevant inquiry was "one not of form, but of effect." If a particular fact -- whether it was called an "element" or a "sentencing factor" -- exposed the defendant to a greater punishment, then the Sixth Amendment required a jury to find it. The Court found no principled basis for exempting capital cases from Apprendi's general rule.

Noting the disparity between Justice Breyer's continued rejection of Apprendi and concurrence in Ring, Justice Scalia added:

While I am, as always, pleased to travel in Justice Breyer's company, the unfortunate fact is that today's judgment has nothing to do with jury sentencing. What today's decision says is that the jury must find the existence of the fact that an aggravating factor existed. Those States that leave the ultimate life-or-death decision to the judge may continue to do so — by requiring a prior jury finding of aggravating factor in the sentencing phase or, more simply, by placing the aggravating-factor determination (where it logically belongs anyway) in the guilt phase.

There is really no way in which Justice Breyer can travel with the happy band that reaches today's result unless he says yes to Apprendi. Concisely put, Justice Breyer is on the wrong flight; he should either get off before the doors close, or buy a ticket to Apprendi-land.

Justice Breyer argued that jury sentencing in capital cases was required by the Eighth Amendment. At the same time he held to his position that jury factfinding of aggravating factors was not generally required in capital cases. Because death is a different punishment, it must have additional procedural safeguards in order to ensure that it more accurately reflects both the moral judgment of the community and the blameworthiness of the individual defendant.

Justice O'Connor argued that the Court's decision would have serious consequences, opening up a flood of litigation from death-row inmates and creating uncertainty in the laws of nine other states that employed either total or partial judicial factfinding in death sentences.