Opinion ID: 2621310
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: Analysis of Ring

Text: In Ring, the Supreme Court considered Arizona's capital sentencing scheme, in which, following a jury adjudication of a defendant's guilt of first-degree murder, the trial judge, sitting alone, determines the presence or absence of the aggravating factors required by Arizona law for imposition of the death penalty. [21] In 1990, in Walton v. Arizona, [22] the Court had held that the Arizona scheme was constitutional because the facts found by the judge were sentencing considerations, not elements of capital murder. [23] Ten years later in Apprendi v. New Jersey, [24] the Court held that the Sixth Amendment does not permit a defendant to be `expose[d] ... to a penalty exceeding the maximum he would receive if punished according to the facts reflected in the jury verdict alone.' [25] The majority in Apprendi nevertheless maintained that Walton remained good law. [26] The Supreme Court revisited this issue in Ring. Under Apprendi, [i]f a State makes an increase in a defendant's authorized punishment contingent on the finding of a fact, that factno matter how the State labels itmust be found by a jury beyond a reasonable doubt. [27] Unable to reconcile Walton with this tenet, the Court overruled Walton to the extent that it allows a sentencing judge, sitting without a jury, to find an aggravating circumstance necessary for imposition of the death penalty. Because Arizona's enumerated aggravating factors operate as the functional equivalent of an element of a greater offense, the Sixth Amendment requires that they be found by a jury. [28] In a footnote, the Court expressly observed that Ring's claim was tightly delineated and did not include a number of issues, for example, whether the treatment of mitigating circumstances implicates the Sixth Amendment or whether the Sixth Amendment requires a jury to decide ultimately whether to impose the death penalty. [29] In another footnote, observing that it ordinarily leaves it to lower courts to pass on the harmlessness of error in the first instance, the Court declined to reach Arizona's assertion that any error was harmless because a pecuniary gain finding was implicit in the jury's guilty verdict. [30] The latter footnote thus leaves open the possibility that the Sixth Amendment violation could be harmless error and directly contradicts Johnson's assertion that Ring does not allow a harmless error analysis.