The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a 5–4 decision that divided the court’s conservatives that a death row inmate in Arizona is entitled to contest his sentence in federal court after a state court’s procedural rule prevented him from doing so.
Appeals from prisoners under a death sentence rarely succeed at the high court but in this case, the conservatives Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh sided with the court’s three liberals in Cruz v. Arizona, court file 21-846, which was handed down on Feb. 22.
The ruling does not set aside the murder conviction of cop killer John Montenegro Cruz, 53. Instead, it means Cruz and about 30 other persons in similar situations will now be entitled to new sentencing proceedings.
In Simmons v. South Carolina (1994), the U.S. Supreme Court found that in cases where a capital defendant is thought to present a future danger to society, the defendant has a due-process-based right to let the jury know that he could never be paroled, even if spared the death penalty, according to court papers.
Years after the decision, the Supreme Court of the State of Arizona reportedly refused on several occasions to apply the ruling, but in 2016 in Lynch v. Arizona, the U.S. Supreme Court confirmed the ruling applies to the Grand Canyon State.
Cruz’s case goes back to 2003. In May of that year, Tucson police officer Patrick Hardesty and another officer were investigating a hit-and-run accident. They found their way to the apartment of Cruz, who matched a description of the driver. After Cruz provided a false name, the officers accompanied Cruz to his car so he could retrieve his identification. Cruz ran away and was pursued by the police. A physical confrontation followed and Cruz shot Hardesty, 40, to death.
In 2005, a jury convicted Cruz of first-degree murder but the trial judge repeatedly ignored the Simmons precedent, denying him the right to inform the jury that under state law he was not eligible for parole. Cruz’s thinking was that providing the jury with that information may have allowed him to rebut the inference that he posed a danger to the public if not given the death penalty. Cruz was sentenced to death.
After the Lynch ruling, Cruz applied in state court arguing he was entitled to post-conviction relief because of the Simmons decision. Cruz brought an action under Arizona Rule of Criminal Procedure 32.1(g), which allows a defendant to bring a petition if “there has been a significant change in the law that, if applicable to the defendant’s case, would probably overturn the defendant’s judgment or sentence.”
Despite having repeatedly found that an overruling of precedent is a significant change in the law, Arizona’s supreme court refused relief to Cruz, holding that the Lynch ruling was not “a significant change in the law.”
The Arizona courts adopted a “novel” interpretation that “disregards the effect of Lynch on the law in Arizona,” Sotomayor wrote.
“While Lynch did not change this Court’s interpretation of Simmons, it did change the operative (and mistaken) interpretation of Simmons by Arizona courts. Lynch thus changed the law in Arizona in the way that matters for purposes of Rule 32.1(g): It overruled previously binding Arizona Supreme Court precedent preventing capital defendants from informing the jury of their parole ineligibility.”
The majority opinion remanded the case to the Arizona high court for reconsideration.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett filed a dissenting opinion which Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch joined.
The majority’s assertion that the Arizona Supreme Court erred is “jarring because the bar” for such a finding is “extraordinarily high,” Barrett wrote.
“When, as here, the argument is based on the state court’s inconsistent or novel application of its law, the bar is met only by a decision so blatantly disingenuous that it reveals hostility to federal rights or those asserting them.”
“Given the respect we owe state courts, that is not a conclusion we should be quick to draw—and ordinarily, we are not quick to draw it,” she wrote.
In this case, “the Arizona Supreme Court did not contradict its own settled law. Instead, it confronted a new question and gave an answer reasonably consistent with its precedent,” Barrett wrote.
The Epoch Times reached out to Cruz’s attorney, Neal Kumar Katyal of Hogan Lovells, but he had not replied as of press time.
Katyal told The Associated Press that he was pleased with the ruling.
“I am so gratified by the Court’s decision today. What Arizona has been doing in implementing the death penalty is patently unconstitutional and wrong, and I’m glad to see the Court call them out,” the lawyer reportedly said.
The Epoch Times also reached out to the Arizona attorney general’s office for comment but had not received a reply at press time.
