Murder’s Impact on Kin Can’t Be Used to Get Death Penalty

The Supreme Court, in a major setback for the victims’ rights movement, ruled today that the impact of a murder on the victim’s family may not be considered when a convicted killer faces a possible death sentence.

The 5-4 ruling struck down the death sentence for a Maryland man convicted of brutally killing an elderly couple.

Justice Lewis F. Powell Jr., writing for the court, said allowing the jury to hear about the emotional impact on the family of the victims can only inflame the jurors and deny the defendant a fair sentence.

“One can understand the grief and anger of the family caused by the brutal murders in this case,” Powell said. “But the formal presentation of this information by the state can serve no other purpose than to inflame the jury and divert it from deciding the case on the relevant evidence concerning the crime and the defendant.”

Introducing the so-called victim impact statement as evidence “creates a constitutionally unacceptable risk that the jury may impose the death penalty in an arbitrary and capricious manner,” Powell said.

Unrelated to Blameworthiness

He added that the impact of the crime on a victim’s family may be entirely unrelated to the blameworthiness of the defendant. It could subject someone to the death penalty merely because family members are willing and able to articulate their grief, Powell said.

Moreover, he said, the only way for the defendant to rebut the evidence would be to show the victim “was of dubious moral character or was ostracized from his family.”

Such an exercise, Powell continued, could distract the jury from its proper task: deciding “whether the death penalty is appropriate in light of the background and record of the accused and the particular circumstances of the crime.”

Most states permit the impact of a crime on the victim--such as emotional and financial effects--to be considered in determing a defendant’s sentence. But only some of those states allow victim impact statements to be introduced when the defendant is accused of a crime that carries the death penalty.

Such state laws are intended to examine the impact on both the victim and, particularly in cases in which the victim is killed, on family members. Today’s ruling applies only to those cases in which the defendant faces possible execution.

Statements Called Inflammatory

Today’s ruling is a victory for civil rights groups who argued that the statements in capital cases are inflammatory and prejudicial.

They argued, for example, that a jury might be less likely to vote to execute someone who killed a drug dealer than if the victim was an upstanding member of the community and was well loved by his family.

But victims’ rights organizations said society has an important stake in meting out the harshest penalties in retribution for the harm done to families of those killed.

Joining Powell in the majority today were Justices William J. Brennan Jr., Thurgood Marshall, Harry A. Blackmun and John Paul Stevens.