NCJ Number
140805
Journal
New England Journal on Criminal and Civil Confinement Volume: 18 Issue: 1-2 Dated: (Winter-Summer 1992) Pages: 203-230
Date Published
1992
Length
28 pages
Annotation
In Whitmore v. Arkansas (1990), the U.S. Supreme Court erred in failing to address the issue of whether the Arkansas death penalty statute is unconstitutional because it does not provide for mandatory appellate review of death sentences.
Abstract
The Court stated that its reason for not considering the issue was because the petitioner, Jonas Whitmore, lacked requisite standing to bring his claim. Jonas Whitmore, another death row inmate in Arkansas, sought to intervene both "individually and 'as next friend of Ronald Gene Simmons'," who had waived his right to direct appeal of his capital sentence. Whitmore was asking the court to consider whether or not the eighth amendment's ban against cruel and unusual punishment requires that a mandatory appellate review be conducted upon imposition of the death penalty. This article begins by establishing that the U.S. Supreme Court decision not to consider this issue based upon Whitmore's lack of requisite standing to bring the claim is inconsistent with prior decisions that have relaxed traditional standing principles to permit resolution of important constitutional issues. The author then demonstrates that the absence of a statutory provision for mandatory appellate review of capital sentences leaves Arkansas' death penalty legislation constitutionally infirm. The author notes the way in which other States have recognized the importance of mandatory appellate review in death penalty cases. Failure to have such a provision, the author argues, violates both the eighth amendment's prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment and the fourteenth amendment's guarantee of due process under the law. 242 footnotes