Dora B. Schriro, Director, Arizona Department of Corrections v. Warren Wesley Summerlin (542 U.S. 348)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided June 24, 2004 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 542 U.S. 348 · 124 S. Ct. 2519
- Decided
- June 24, 2004
- Term
- October Term 2003
- Vote
- 5–4
- Majority author
- Justice Scalia
- Issue area
- Criminal Procedure
- Disposition
- Reversed and remanded
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Conservative
Opinion excerpt
Justice Scalia delivered the opinion of the Court. In this case, we decide whether Ring v. Arizona, 536 U. S. 584 (2002), applies retroactively to cases already final on direct review. I In April 1981, Finance America employee Brenna Bailey disappeared while on a house call to discuss an outstanding debt with respondent Warren Summerlin’s wife. That evening, an anonymous woman (later identified as respondent’s mother-in-law) called the police and accused respondent of murdering Bailey. Bailey’s partially nude body, her skull crushed, was found the next morning in the trunk of her car, wrapped in a bedspread from respondent’s home. Police arrested respondent and later overheard him make incriminating remarks to his wife. Respondent was convicted of first-degree murder and sexual assault. Arizona’s capital sentencing provisions in effect at the time authorized the death penalty if one of several enumerated aggravating factors was present. See Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann. §§ 13-703(E), (F) (West 1978), as amended by Act of May 1, 1979 Ariz. Sess. Laws ch. 144. Whether those aggravating factors existed, however, was determined by the trial judge rather than by a jury. § 13-703(B). In this case the judge, after a hearing, found two aggravating factors: a prior felony conviction involving use or threatened use of violence, § 13-703(F)(2), and commission of the offense in an especially…
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