Ring v. Arizona: Who Decides Death? Charles L. Scott, MD, and Joan B. Gerbasi, JD, MD J Am Acad Psychiatry Law 31:106 –9, 2003 In the United States, the right to a jury trial is guar- anteed by the Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Consti- tution, made applicable to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment. The Sixth Amendment states, in part, “In all criminal prosecutions, the ac- cused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed.” The U.S. Supreme Court has also held that the “Consti- tution gives a criminal defendant the right to have a jury determine, beyond a reasonable doubt, his guilt of every element of the crime with which he is charged.”1 In Walton v. Arizona,2 the U.S. Supreme Court held that an Arizona statute permitting a judge to determine whether the death penalty should be im- posed on a capital defendant did not violate the Sixth Amendment’s guarantee to a trial by jury. In partic- ular, the Court found that aggravating factors neces- sary to impose the death penalty were not elements of the offense and instead served as circumstances for consideration by a judge when deciding between the penalties of life imprisonment or death. In contrast, the Court held in Apprendi v. New Jersey,3 that a judge could not make findings that would increase a defendant’s sentence beyond the maximum, because that was comparable with an ad- ditional conviction. In Apprendi, the defendant was convicted of second-degree possession of a firearm, an offense carrying a maximum penalty of 10 years under New Jersey law. The sentencing judge found that Apprendi’s crime was racially motivated and therefore under New Jersey law triggered the appli- cation of a hate crime enhancement. The trial judge sentenced Apprendi to 12 years, two years over the maximum sentence that the jury could impose but for the hate crime enhancement. The U.S. Supreme Court held that Apprendi’s sentence violated his right to a jury determination that he was guilty be- yond a reasonable doubt of each element of the crime with which he was charged. The Court noted, “If a State makes an increase in a defendant’s authorized punishment contingent on the finding of a fact, that fact—no matter how the State labels it—must be found by a jury beyond a reasonable doubt” (Ref. 3, pp 482– 83). The Apprendi Court appreciated that a conflict could be found between its holdings in Apprendi and Walton, but stated that the rulings could be reconciled. The key distinction was that the Ari- zona statutory scheme that was at issue in Walton provided that a conviction of first-degree murder carried a maximum sentence of death. The Court stated: Once a jury has found the defendant guilty of all the elements of an offense which carries as its maximum penalty the sen- tence of death, it may be left to the judge to decide whether that maximum penalty, rather than a lesser one, ought to be imposed [Ref. 3, p 497, emphasis deleted, quoting Almen- darez-Torres v. U.S., 523 U.S. 224, 257, n 2 (1998), Scalia J, dissenting]. On January 11, 2002, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear Ring v. Arizona to reconsider the con- stitutionality of having a judge, rather than a jury, decide the critical sentencing issues in a death penalty case. The case was decided on June 24, 2002.4 Case Background Timothy Ring was charged with murder and armed robbery. On November 28, 1994, a Wells Fargo armored van pulled up to a store in a local mall, and the courier left the van to pick up money inside the mall. When he returned, the van and its driver Dr. Scott is Chief of the Forensic Psychiatry Division and Assistant Professor of Clinical Psychiatry and Forensic Psychiatry Residency Training Director and Dr. Gerbasi is Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry and Associate Director of the Forensic Psychiatry Resi- dency, University of California, Davis, Sacramento, CA. Address cor- respondence to: Charles L. Scott, MD, Department of Psychiatry, University of California, Davis Medical Center, 2230 Stockton Blvd., Sacramento, CA 95817. E-mail: charles.scott@ucdmc.ucdavis.edu 106 The Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law A N A L Y S I S A N D C O M M E N T A R Y were gone. The van was later found in a parking lot with the driver dead of a single gunshot to the head. More than $562,000 in cash and $270,000 in checks were missing from the van. Based on an informant’s tip, the police placed wiretaps on the telephones of Timothy Ring, James Greenham, and William Fer- guson. Ring was noted to make statements in his telephone conversation with Ferguson that indicated he had knowledge about the stolen money. The po- lice executed a search warrant at Ring’s house and discovered a duffel bag in his garage containing more that $271,000 in cash. Ring alleged that the money was startup capital for a construction company he and Greenham were planning to form. He stated that he had obtained the money from his work as a con- fidential informant for the Federal Bureau of Inves- tigation and as a bail bondsman, although other ev- idence indicated that he had made less than $10,000 from these jobs. The trial judge instructed the jury on alternative charges of premeditated murder and felony murder. The jury convicted Ring of felony murder but dead- locked on the charge of premeditated murder. Under Arizona law, Ring could not be sentenced to death unless further findings were made. In addition, the Arizona statute required the judge who presided at trial to conduct a separate sentencing hearing to de- termine the presence or absence of certain circum- stances to assist in deciding what sentence should be imposed. The judge was also responsible for deter- mining the presence or absence of enumerated “ag- gravating circumstances” and “mitigating circum- stances” at the conclusion of the sentencing hearing. At the sentencing hearing, Greenham (who had pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and armed robbery) testified that Ring had shot the driver of the van and had taken the role as leader in planning the robbery. This testimony contradicted prior state- ments Greenham had made to Ring’s attorney that Ring had not planned or initiated the robbery. The trial judge sentenced Ring to death and acknowl- edged that because Ring had been convicted of fel- ony murder, Ring was eligible for the death penalty only if he was the actual killer of the van driver or if he was a “major participant in the armed robbery” and “exhibited a reckless disregard or indifference for hu- man life.” Based on Greenham’s testimony, the judge concluded that Ring shot the van driver and was a major participant in the armed robbery. The judge noted that two aggravating factors were present: Ring’s expectation of receiving something of “pecuniary value” and the commission of the crime “in an especially heinous, cruel or depraved manner.” The one mitigating factor noted by the judge was Ring’s “minimal” criminal record. However, the judge found that this factor did not “call for le- niency” and sentenced Ring to death. Ring appealed to the Arizona Supreme Court ar- guing that Arizona’s capital sentencing scheme vio- lated the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, because it entrusts to a judge, rather than a jury, the finding of a fact that would serve to raise the defendant’s maximum penalty. The Arizona Supreme Court viewed the Apprendi major- ity’s portrayal of Arizona’s capital sentencing law as incorrect and agreed with the dissent that the deter- minations made by the judge with respect to the aggravating factors required “factual findings.” However, the Arizona Supreme Court noted that the U.S. Supreme Court had previously upheld Arizo- na’s sentencing statute in Walton v. Arizona and had stated, 10 years later, in Apprendi that Walton re- mained good law. Therefore, the Arizona Supreme Court, citing its duties under the supremacy clause, upheld the death sentence imposed on Ring. The U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari to revisit the case, given the tension between Walton and the rea- soning of Apprendi. The Decision In a seven-to-two decision, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed the judgment of the Arizona Supreme Court and remanded the case for further proceedings consistent with the judgment. Justice Ginsberg, writ- ing for the majority, stated that the question before the Supreme Court was “whether th[e] aggravating factor may be found by the judge, as Arizona law specifies, or whether the Sixth Amendment’s jury trial guarantee, made applicable to the states by the Fourteenth Amendment, requires that the aggravat- ing factor determination be entrusted to the jury” (Ref. 4, p 2437, citations omitted). The Court opined that its holdings in Walton and Apprendi are irreconcilable. Taken together, the holdings would mean that it is permissible under the Sixth Amendment for a state to allow a judge, instead of a jury, to make a finding that would determine whether a defendant served life in prison or was put to death but is a violation of the Sixth Amendment for a state to do the same with respect to a factual Scott and Gerbasi 107Volume 31, Number 1, 2003 determination that results in a two-year increase in the maximum sentence. In their discussion regarding whether an aggravating-factor determination in death penalty cases should be considered as an ele- ment of the offense that must be determined by a jury, the Court majority wrote, “We see no reason to differentiate capital crimes from all others in this re- gard” (Ref. 4, p 2442). The Court emphasized that “the relevant inquiry is one not of form, but of effect” (Ref. 4, p 2439, citing Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S., at 494), and found that “because Arizona’s enumerated aggravating factors operate as the func- tional equivalent of an element of a greater offense, the Sixth Amendment requires that they be found by a jury” (Ref. 4, p 2443, internal citations omitted). The state of Arizona also argued that, even if facts increasing punishment beyond the maximum autho- rized by the jury verdict must ordinarily be found by a jury, aggravating circumstances necessary to result in a death sentence may nonetheless be reserved for determination by a judge because “death is different” and is deserving of greater protection. The state ar- gued that granting judges authority to find aggravat- ing factors “may be a better way to guarantee against the arbitrary imposition of the death penalty” (Ref. 4, p 2442). Writing for the majority, however, Jus- tice Ginsberg dismissed this argument and opined that the superiority of judicial fact finding in capital cases is “far from evident” and observed, addition- ally, that most states with statutes requiring the pres- ence of aggravating factors entrust those determina- tions to the jury, not the judge (Ref. 4, p. 2442). The Court majority concluded: Walton and Apprendi are irreconcilable; our Sixth Amendment jurisprudence cannot be home to both. Accordingly, we over- rule Walton to the extent that it allows a sentencing judge sitting without a jury to find an aggravating circumstance necessary for imposition of the death penalty. Because Arizona’s enumerated aggravating factors operate as the functional equivalent of an element of a greater offense, the Sixth Amendment requires that they be found by a jury [Ref. 4, p 2443, internal quotations and citations omitted]. Justice Scalia wrote a concurring opinion in which Justice Thomas joined. Justice Scalia expressed con- cern regarding the increasing movement of state and federal legislatures to adopt sentencing factors that increase punishment beyond that which is autho- rized by the jury. He emphasized, . . .that the fundamental meaning of the jury trial guarantee of the Sixth Amendment is that all facts essential to imposition of the level of punishment that the defendant receives—whether the statute calls them elements of the offense, sentencing factors, or Mary Jane—must be found by the jury beyond a reasonable doubt [Ref. 4, p 2444]. He observed: [The ] decline [in our people’s belief in the right to trial by jury] is bound to be confirmed, and indeed accelerated by the re- peated spectacle of a man’s going to his death because a judge found that an aggravating factor existed. We cannot preserve our veneration for the protection of the jury in criminal cases if we render ourselves callous to the need for that protection by regularly imposing the death penalty without it [Ref. 4, p 2445; emphasis in original]. In his concurring opinion, Justice Breyer stated that he concurred in the judgment of the majority, but on different grounds. He believes that that jury sentencing in capital cases is mandated by the Eighth Amendment because juries have a comparative ad- vantage over judges in determining whether capital punishment will serve society’s needs for retribution in a given case, as jury members are “more attuned to the community’s moral sensibility” (Ref. 4, p 2447; internal quotations and citations omitted). Justice O’Connor, writing a dissent that was joined by Chief Justice Rehnquist, argued that the Court should overturn their previous holding in Ap- prendi rather than their holding in Walton. Justice O’Connor commented that the Constitution did not require that any fact that could increase the penalty of the crime be treated as an element of the offense. The dissent cautioned that a substantial increase in criminal appeals had already resulted from their prior ruling in Apprendi and foreshadowed similar appeals in cases in which judges had imposed the death pen- alty on capital defendants. Discussion By overturning their prior ruling in Walton, the U.S. Supreme Court violated the principle of follow- ing precedent, a doctrine known as stare decisis (let the decision stand). The Court observed that al- though “the doctrine of stare decisis is of fundamen- tal importance to the rule of law. . .our precedents are not sacrosanct. . .[and must be overruled] where the necessity and propriety of doing so has been es- tablished” (Ref. 4, pp 2442– 43, internal quotations and citations omitted). The Court was satisfied that Ring presented such a case. The Supreme Court’s holding in this case is likely to have a substantial impact on sentencing practices in capital cases in several states. Before this ruling, Imposition of the Death Penalty 108 The Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law three States (Arizona, Idaho, and Montana) had stat- utes authorizing a single judge to impose the death penalty, and two states (Colorado, Nebraska) al- lowed the determination of the death penalty by a three-judge panel. Based on the Ring decision, these five state statutes are no longer likely to meet consti- tutional muster. Three of these states (Arizona, Mon- tana, and Colorado) have already rewritten their stat- utes so that juries, not judges, determine when the death penalty will be imposed. Four other states (Alabama, Delaware, Florida, and Indiana) allow a judge to make a sentencing decision after the jury has made a recommendation regarding the imposition of the death penalty. Al- though the impact of the Ring decision regarding the constitutionality of these statutes is less clear, both Delaware and Indiana have rewritten their statutes and now require a jury to determine eligibility for the death penalty without involvement by the judge in this decision. The retroactive application of the Ring decision to capital defendants sentenced under stat- utes that may now be unconstitutional has yet to be determined. The applicability of the Court’s holding also remains unknown in those situations in which a defendant waived his or her right to a trial by jury or when the judge imposed the death penalty on the recommendation of the jury. The Court’s decision may affect nearly 800 death sentences in nine states and may require resentencing of hundreds of inmates. References 1. U.S. v. Gaudin, 515 U.S. 506, 510 (1995) 2. Walton v. Arizona, 497 U.S. 639 (1990) 3. Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466 (2000) 4. Ring v. Arizona, 536 U.S. 584 (2002) Scott and Gerbasi 109Volume 31, Number 1, 2003