Opinion ID: 1702189
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: whether an indictment for capital murder must allege all of the statutory elements of the crime.

Text: ¶ 73. Berry's argument is based on the holdings of two United States District Courts: Although the Ring decision explicitly did not discuss whether a defendant was entitled to grand jury indictment on the facts that, if proven, would justify a sentence of death, ... the clear implication of the decision, resting as squarely as it does on Jones, is that in a federal capital case the Fifth Amendment right to a grand jury indictment will apply. United States v. Fell, 217 F.Supp.2d 469, 483 (D.Vt.2002). Fell is not a federal capital case, and there is nothing to show that this Fifth Amendment right is applicable to a state capital case. In any event, the Second Circuit has vacated the district court judgment in Fell. United States v. Fell, 360 F.3d 135 (2d Cir.2004). Berry also cites United States v. Lentz, 225 F.Supp.2d 672 (E.D.Va.2002), which makes the same finding, but once again deals with the Federal Death Penalty Act, or FDPA. ¶ 74. Berry also relies on the United States Supreme Court decision of Allen v. United States, 536 U.S. 953, 122 S.Ct. 2653, 153 L.Ed.2d 830 (2002). In a memorandum decision, the Supreme Court stated the following: The judgment [in Allen ] is vacated and the case is remanded to the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit for further consideration in light of Ring v. Arizona .  This decision is confusing to this writer for two reasons: (1) Allen is a federal capital case while Ring is a state capital case and (2) the holding in Ring was that only a jury could find an aggravating circumstance necessary for the imposition of the death penalty. This issue was not considered in Allen because under the Federal Death Penalty Act, a jury must find the aggravating factors. See United States v. Allen, 247 F.3d 741, 758 (8th Cir.2001) (The framework of the FDPA passes constitutional muster because it does not allow imposition of the death penalty unless the jury first finds at least one statutory aggravating circumstance.) ¶ 75. One issue raised in Allen was the issue Berry raises here, that of his indictment being defective because it did not contain the aggravating factors. The Eighth Circuit in Allen found that Allen's indictment was not defective even though it did not contain the aggravating factors. If this is the basis on which Allen is being reversed, it seems odd to cite Ring to do it. The question of what an indictment must contain in a state capital case was not before the Ring Court. In Apprendi, the Supreme Court stated that the Fifth Amendment right to indictment had never been applied to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment. The Supreme Court has not found that state capital defendants have a constitutional right to have all aggravating circumstances listed in their indictments. ¶ 76. The State argues that the decision in Ring does not apply retroactively, citing Tyler v. Cain, 533 U.S. 656, 663, 121 S.Ct. 2478, 150 L.Ed.2d 632 (2001), where the Court stated: We thus conclude that a new rule is not `made retroactive to cases on collateral review' unless the Supreme Court holds it to be retroactive. We agree. The Supreme Court has recently held that Ring announces a procedural rule and does not apply retroactively to death penalty cases already final on direct review. Schriro v. Summerlin, 542 U.S. ___, 124 S.Ct. 2519, 159 L.Ed.2d 442 (2004).