High Court Scrutinizing Capital Cases

The Supreme Court opened the door Monday for two new challenges to the death penalty, allowing the use of new DNA evidence to contest an old murder conviction and allowing an appeal based on the practice of lethal injection.

In House vs. Bell, the court held for the first time that DNA evidence that undercuts a defendant’s guilt is reason enough for a federal judge to reopen a case.

The second case acknowledges the new research that suggests lethal injections could cause intense pain. The court unanimously agreed that a federal judge should hear a Florida inmate’s claim that the lethal injection procedure the state intended to use was unconstitutional cruel and unusual punishment.

The medical research on lethal injections has triggered appeals that challenge the procedure in many states, including California. Earlier this year, a federal judge in San Jose ordered a hearing into California’s lethal injection procedure, set for Sept. 19.

In the pair of decisions, the high court made clear that it views the death penalty as subject to especially close scrutiny.

Support for the death penalty has been shaken by a number of revelations over the last decade that people condemned to death had been wrongly convicted.

At the same time, the high court and Congress have made it harder for federal judges to reopen capital cases, responding to complaints over seemingly endless hearings.

But on Monday, the court shifted course slightly and announced two exceptions to the rules against reopening death penalty cases in federal court.

Justice Anthony M. Kennedy delivered both decisions for the court. With the retirement of Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, he has assumed the center spot when the court is closely split along ideological lines.

Twenty years ago, Paul House, a paroled rapist and a newcomer to a rural east Tennessee town, was found guilty of murdering a woman who lived two miles away.

Prosecutors theorized he had tried to rape the victim. A decade later, lawyers learned that a semen stain on her nightgown had come from the victim’s husband, not House.

In a 5-3 decision, the court said such “reliable new evidence” was reason enough for a federal judge to reopen his case.

DNA evidence has freed scores of prisoners, including some who were on death row. Lawyers for the Innocence Project based in New York predicted Monday’s ruling would have a broad effect because it removed a barrier to having some of these cases heard in federal court.

In the second case, Hill vs. McDonough, the court put states on notice that they would have to defend the mix of drugs that are used for lethal injection.

In recent decades, the use of lethal drugs has taken the place of the electric chair as the standard means of carrying out executions. All states with capital punishment except Nebraska call for lethal injection as the primary execution method.

Typically, three drugs are administered during an execution. The first is the anesthetic, sodium pentothal. Next comes pancuronium bromide, which paralyzes the muscles, including the lungs. Finally, a dose of potassium chloride stops the heart.

Last year, the British medical journal, the Lancet, published a study that concluded some executed men may have suffered intense, burning pain as they died. The study said that could happen because they were not given enough sodium pentothal.

Because potassium chloride causes intense pain, veterinarians have been cautioned about its use in ending the lives of dogs and cats.

Lawyers for inmates facing execution cited the Lancet study in last-minute appeals in federal courts and urged judges to act. They argued that these lethal injections, as currently practiced, amounted to cruel and unusual punishment, a violation of the 8th Amendment.

Some judges took up this complaint. In February, U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel in San Jose stopped the execution of Michael A. Morales, who was convicted of the 1981 murder of a Lodi teenager. He scheduled a hearing for the fall to review California’s method of carrying out executions.

Other federal judges said they were barred from reopening these state cases on the eve of an execution.

In January, the Supreme Court halted the execution of Clarence Hill, the murderer of a Florida police officer, and agreed to hear his claim that the lethal injection procedure the state intended to use was unconstitutional.

On Monday, the court ruled unanimously for Hill, but said only that a federal judge should hear Hill’s claim. The justices emphasized that Hill was not contesting his guilt, his death sentence or the state’s plan to execute him by lethal injection, only the particular method of doing so.

Legal experts said the decision would have an important, but temporary, effect.

“This will be a speed bump,” said Eric M. Freedman, a law professor at Hofstra University. “It means each state will have to defend its drug protocol. It may take a year, or a couple of years, to straighten this out, depending on how fast they move.”

Kent Scheidegger, a lawyer for the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation in Sacramento, said the decision had no impact in California because a hearing was already scheduled on the issue. “It is extremely unlikely this will prevent executions,” he said. “We may see some adjustment to the drug dosages.”

The DNA case split the court along ideological lines. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. dissented, as did Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. did not take part in the decision because the case was heard before he joined the court.

The case of Paul House was described by one judge as a whodunit murder mystery.

Kennedy said the new evidence did not prove House was not guilty. He had lied about his whereabouts on the night of the murder, and bloodstains from the victim were found on his jeans.

Still, the DNA evidence undercut the prosecution’s claim that House had sexually assaulted the victim, he said. “We conclude that this is the rare case where -- had the jury heard all the conflicting testimony -- it is more likely than not that no reasonable juror” would have voted to convict House, Kennedy said.

Roberts said the new DNA evidence did not shake the prosecution’s case that House was the murderer.

The ruling does not overturn House’s conviction. However, it gives his lawyers a new chance to argue in federal court that his conviction was unconstitutional because the jury did not hear evidence that would have implicated the husband in his wife’s murder.