Breyer Dissents in Cert Denial for 30-Year-Old Capital Case
The U.S. Supreme Court has refused to hear an appeal by an Arizona inmate who argued that executing him 30 years after his original conviction would amount to cruel and unusual punishment.
Justice Stephen G. Breyer dissented from the denial of certiorari, the New York Times reports.
Joe Clarence Smith was convicted in 1977 of murdering a 14-year-old girl whose nude body was found in the desert near Phoenix. He pleaded guilty a month later to the murder of an 18-year-old woman whose unclothed body was also found in the desert.
His death sentence was twice overturned.
“In my view, Smith can reasonably claim that his execution at this late date would be ‘unusual,’ ” Breyer wrote. “I am unaware of other executions that have taken place after so long a delay, particularly when much of the delay at issue seems due to constitutionally defective sentencing proceedings. And whether it is ‘cruel’ to keep an individual for decades on death row or otherwise under threat of imminent execution raises a serious constitutional question.”
