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Clinic Students' Petition Challenging Georgia's Review of Death Sentences Persuades Supreme Court Justice, But the Case Will Not be Heard by High Court
"Students who draft petitions on behalf of death row inmates for review of their cases in the Supreme Court know that the chances are extraordinarily small," Professor Ursula Bentele, director of the clinic, explained. Usually, the order announcing "certiorari denied" comes on the first Monday after the case appears on the Court's conference list, she said. "For Artemus Walker, that Monday was October 6, and hundreds of orders denying cert were issued, but his was not among them." Two more conferences were scheduled and the justices asked for submission of the record from the Supreme Court of Georgia. When the suspenseful wait finally ended, the students were understandably torn. Bethany Jones '09, who had worked on the petition, said, "My first reaction to the statement from Justice Stevens and Justice Thomas was a bit selfish -- I was excited and astonished that members of the United States Supreme Court took interest in our clinic's petition and that one Justice (and perhaps more) actually adopted the argument we presented." However, the court turned down the case because the claims raised in the petition had not been adequately presented to the Georgia courts. "After reading through the Justices' statements," Jones continued, "reality sunk in as I realized how close we came to giving our defendant a chance to be heard in the Supreme Court. Despite the attention our brief received, there is still a man on death row, and many others like him, convicted under a death penalty statute that does not adequately prevent against arbitrary, capricious, and discriminatory sentences… Perhaps another defendant will successfully challenge Georgia's current proportionality practice and the Court can decide whether its 'perfunctory' review renders the death penalty scheme unconstitutional." Professor Bentele found it gratifying that "at least one Justice had been persuaded that Georgia death penalty cases were not being given the careful review by the state courts on which the Supreme Court had relied when it approved the Georgia statute," she said. "Justice Stevens wrote a lengthy opinion regarding the denial of cert, accepting the students' claim that the state's proportionality review failed to guard against arbitrary and capricious imposition of capital punishment," Professor Bentele said. He particularly noted the continuing concerns about race in a state in which death sentences are imposed most frequently in cases like Mr. Walker's involving black defendants and white victims. His statement prompted a response from Justice Clarence Thomas, who found nothing constitutionally defective about the Georgia court's review. Other students who helped draft the petition were Kalli Koffinas '09 and Mary Anne Mendenhall '08. Three students currently enrolled in the clinic, Andrew Diamond '09, Shayna Kessler '10, and Jessica Spector '09, wrote a Reply to the Brief in Opposition in which they stressed the importance of the substantive claim, as well as attempting to persuade the Court that it should grant review despite the procedural defect. Read opinions of Justices Stevens and Thomas.
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