Return to Transcripts main page

American Morning

Supreme Court Says Only Juries Can Apply Death Penalty

Aired June 25, 2002 - 07:13   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Death penalty opponents are cheering a ruling by the Supreme Court. It says only juries and not judges can decide whether a convicted killer is sentenced to life or death. That decision puts 168 death row inmates in limbo right now in five different states. For the second time in a week, we have had a Supreme Court ruling on the death penalty.

More legal reaction now from our analyst here, Jeffrey Toobin -- good morning to you.

JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Hi, Bill.

HEMMER: They say judges cannot, but juries can.

TOOBIN: Correct.

HEMMER: Why the change here?

TOOBIN: The Supreme Court said by a 7 to 2 margin, so a wide margin, they said that it is not -- the death penalty decision is so significant that it can't be delegated just to the judges. That the people who decide guilt also have to decide on the death penalty, and that invalidated the laws in at least five states.

HEMMER: I know we are talking about death penalty cases, but confuse me for a moment here. The big case last week was the judge in the Marjorie Knoller case who came in and trumped the second-degree murder charge...

TOOBIN: That's right.

HEMMER: ... and overruled essentially the jury.

TOOBIN: Correct.

HEMMER: But what the judges are saying, the Supreme Court in this case, the justices are ruling that it only applies to death penalty cases because of the severity of the crimes.

TOOBIN: Well, but just to make it a little more complicated is judges can always ratchet down sentences, like the judge did in the dog mauling case. That is always going to be acceptable for a judge to overrule the jury and make the sentence less or invalidate a conviction. But what the Supreme Court said is the judges cannot go above what juries do or substitute for juries when it's a death penalty decision. They can only -- that decision can only be in the hands of the jury.

HEMMER: Got it. Impact on five different states...

TOOBIN: At least five.

HEMMER: .. who have over 160...

TOOBIN: At least five. The five states are -- that where the death penalty law will certainly have to be rewritten -- are Arizona, where this case came out of, Idaho, Montana, Nebraska and Colorado. And in addition, there are four more states where it's very likely that the death penalty law will have to be changed. That includes Florida, Alabama, Indiana and Delaware, where there are a lot of people on death row.

HEMMER: This is significant.

TOOBIN: This is -- you know, I think those of us who cover the courts sometimes, you know, we're a little bit like the boy who cries wolf, we say cases are very important. This one really is very important. You've got 3,700 people on death row in the United States. If you add up all of the people who are potentially affected by this decision, it could be as many as 800 of those 3,700 off death row.

HEMMER: In a broader sense, second decision by the Supreme Court in a week regarding the death penalty.

TOOBIN: Right.

HEMMER: What's happening within that venture?

TOOBIN: Well, and last week, the decision was mentally retarded defendants cannot be executed. So you have two very anti-death penalty decisions from a court that has been historically very pro- death penalty.

What I think is going on is in recent years, we have seen the emergence of DNA technology, which has reminded people that the judicial system is not perfect. That there have been innocent people on death row, if not executed, and that's what DNA has really shown. And the courts are getting a little worried that innocent people may be executed in this country.

So the Supreme Court is sending a very significant message this week and last week, saying, let's slow down. Let's be careful. They are not abolishing the death penalty. That in the 1970s looked like a possibility. It's not a possibility from this Supreme Court.

But they are saying, we have got to get our procedures in line. We've got to get them more uniform. And you know, there have been some very dramatic changes.

HEMMER: You raise an interesting point. If you go back to the case in Illinois, where the governor said freeze it, stop it for now. I need a study to tell me whether or not we are being effective, and guilty people indeed are being put to death. Is there anything in either Illinois -- I think Virginia was another case.

TOOBIN: Maryland.

HEMMER: Maryland -- excuse me. But considering those two states right now, have they drawn any conclusions about how they will proceed in the future?

TOOBIN: Well, Illinois just had a very big report from the commission that the governor appointed, led by people like Scott Turow, the novelist actually, and the lawyer in Chicago. And what they decided was there needs to be a whole new set of procedural protections in place, better lawyers for the defense, more investigators, tape recorded confessions if there are going to be confessions, not just the word of the cops about confessions, lots of new procedures in place to try to make the trials more reliable.

Illinois had not adopted all of those proposals, but those are the kind of ideas you are going to start hearing a lot about more, not to abolish the death penalty, but to make sure the right people...

(CROSSTALK)

HEMMER: I know you are an attorney. You are not an adviser. But how do families who have been affected by this, how do they make sense of this ruling?

TOOBIN: You know, that's what is going to be so painful about this, because you know, we talk about 800 peoples' sentences possibly overturned. That means all 800 cases are going to have to go back into court.

HEMMER: Wow!

TOOBIN: It means the victims are going to, you know, have to relive this experience.

HEMMER: And you're going to make decisions on whether or not you are going to have retrials, and the victims' families are going to have to make a decision whether or not they want to go forward with this again.

TOOBIN: It's just, you know, more heartbreak for them. You know, this is really a very -- it's very hard to know what to tell victims' families, because you know, the one thing you can hope for, I suppose, is some finality in a death penalty case if you are a victim's family. Here there is a great deal of uncertainty, a lot more legal proceedings for many, many cases, and it's just more heartbreak.

HEMMER: Thank you, Jeff -- Jeffrey Toobin, our legal analyst here this morning.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.