Opinion ID: 3134662
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 31

Heading: Multiple Death Sentences and Delay in Execution

Text: Defendant next raises constitutional objections to his death sentence and its implementation. In Simms II , this court vacated defendant’s death sentence and remanded for a new death sentencing hearing because the jury had been instructed erroneously that residential burglary could be the predicate felony for the imposition of the death penalty under section 9–1(b)(6) of the Criminal Code of 1961. Simms II , 143 Ill. 2d 154. On May 27, 1992, defendant filed a motion asking the trial court to bar the death sentencing hearing pursuant to the fifth, eighth and fourteenth amendments to the United States Constitution (U.S. Const., amends. V, VIII, XIV). Defendant maintained that principles of double jeopardy applied to bar a new death sentencing hearing. Defendant also argued that the trial court should bar the death sentencing hearing because of the State’s misconduct in submitting erroneous instructions to the court. The trial court denied the motion, and defendant appealed to this court. On September 16, 1992, this court dismissed defendant’s appeal “as patently without merit,” and remanded the cause to the trial court with directions to proceed with the death sentencing hearing. This court thus determined that a new death sentencing hearing should not be barred on principles of double jeopardy, and rejected defendant’s argument that the State should forgo the hearing because of prosecutorial misconduct. In the present appeal, defendant contends that sentencing him to death on three occasions is a violation of the double jeopardy clause and permits the State to continue to engage in continuing prosecutorial misconduct to secure a sentence of death. Defendant also argues that the delay in carrying out the death sentence constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. We have heretofore addressed defendant’s double jeopardy and prosecutorial misconduct claims and will not reconsider these claims. We turn, then, to the additional argument that the delay in the execution of the death sentence constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. As noted above, in 1985, defendant was sentenced to death for the murder of Lillian LaCrosse. This court affirmed defendant’s convictions but vacated defendant’s death sentence and remanded for a new death sentencing hearing. See Simms I , 121 Ill. 2d 259. Thereafter, defendant was twice resentenced to death. In 1995, this court affirmed defendant’s death sentence. See Simms III , 168 Ill. 2d 176. The post-conviction proceedings have caused an additional delay of five years in the execution of the death sentence. Defendant concedes that this claim has been waived. However, defendant argues that trial counsel was ineffective in not raising this claim and appellate counsel was ineffective in failing to argue the ineffectiveness of trial counsel. This court has not previously considered whether, in general, executing a defendant after a delay occasioned by the appeal process and/or post-conviction proceedings constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. (footnote: 4) However, this issue has been considered, and rejected by several other courts. We agree with the reasoning of these courts. In Chambers v. Bowesox , 157 F.3d 560 (8th Cir. 1998), the court discussed the origins of the delay argument and its success since 1993 in commonwealth countries. The court then distinguished our legal system and observed that the delays generated by our system of appeals are a function of our courts’ desire to address any argument that might save the defendant’s life: “The essential point for our purposes, of course, is whether or not the Eighth Amendment is being violated. We believe that delay in capital cases is too long. But delay, in large part, is a function of the desire of our courts, state and federal, to get it right, to explore exhaustively, or at least sufficiently, any argument that might save someone’s life. Chambers’s strongest argument is that the State has had to try him three times before getting it right. That is true, but there is no evidence, not even a claim, that the State has deliberately sought to convict Chambers invalidly in order to prolong the time before it could secure a valid conviction and execute him. We believe the State has been attempting in good faith to enforce its laws. Delay has come about because Chambers, of course with justification, has contested the judgments against him, and, on two occasions, has done so successfully.” Chambers , 157 F.3d at 570. The reasoning of the Ninth Circuit is also instructive: “In Richmond v. Lewis , 948 F.2d 1473 (9th Cir. 1990), rev’d on other grounds , 506 U.S. 40, 113 S. Ct. 528, 121 L. Ed. 2d 411 (1992), vacated , 986 F.2d 1583 (9th Cir. 1993), we rejected a very similar argument. We reasoned that: A defendant must not be penalized for pursuing his constitutional rights, but he also should not be able to benefit from the ultimately unsuccessful pursuit of those right. It would indeed be a mockery of justice if the delay incurred during the prosecution of claims that fail on the merits could itself accrue into a substantive claim to the very relief that had been sought and properly denied in the first place. If that were the law, death-row inmates would be able to avoid their sentences simply by delaying proceedings beyond some threshold amount of time, while other death-row inmates–less successful in their attempts to delay–would be forced to face their sentences. Such differential treatment would be far more ‘arbitrary and unfair’ and ‘Cruel and unusual’ than the current system of fulfilling sentences when the last in the line of appeals fails on the merits. We thus decline to recognize Richmond’s lengthy incarceration on death row during the pendency of his appeals as substantively and independently violative of the Constitution. Id . at 1491-92. Although the opinion was subsequently vacated, Richmond remains persuasive authority, and we adopt its analysis of this issue as our own.” McKenzie v. Day , 57 F.3d 1493, 1494 (9th Cir. 1995) ( en banc ). See also Stafford v. Ward , 59 F.3d 1025 (10th Cir. 1995); Fearance v. Scott , 56 F.3d 633 (5th Cir. 1995); McKinney v. State , 133 Idaho 695, 701-03, 992 P.2d 144, 150-52 (1999). We conclude that a delay in the execution of the death sentence occasioned by the appeal process and/or post-conviction proceedings does not constitute cruel and unusual punishment. In this case, was trial counsel ineffective in failing to argue at the third death sentencing hearing that the delay in the execution of the death sentence constituted cruel and unusual punishment? We think not. Defendant has not cited, nor are we aware of, any cases in our jurisprudence supporting the argument that a delay in execution of a death sentence occasioned by the appeal process and/or post-conviction proceedings is cruel and unusual punishment. “When a convicted defendant complains of the ineffectiveness of counsel’s assistance, the defendant must show that counsel’s representation fell below an objective standard of reasonableness.” Strickland , 466 U.S. at 687-88, 80 L. Ed. 2d at 693, 104 S. Ct. at 2064. Given the lack of support for defendant’s position, we cannot agree that trial counsel’s performance was deficient. We also conclude that appellate counsel was not ineffective in failing to raise this issue on appeal given the lack of support for defendant’s position and our determination that such a delay does not constitute cruel and unusual punishment.