"High court to hear death case," is Malia Rulon's report in today's Cincinnati Enquirer.
The court's decision, not expected for months, could mean life or death for the killers convicted in the 1992 case - even though they may be retarded.
Ten-year-old Aaron Raines was kidnapped May 12, 1992, from a park in Lower Price Hill. Police found his body later that night in the basement of an abandoned building in Cincinnati. The Oyler Elementary School fourth grader had been kicked, beaten with a piece of concrete and a metal pipe and strangled with a piece of twine, court documents said.
Fingerprints led investigators to Darryl Gumm and Michael Bies of Hazard, Ky., who each said he witnessed the death but blamed the other for inflicting the deadly wounds.
And:
Both argued at sentencing that they were mentally retarded.
The jury did not accept their assertion and sentenced both to die. On appeal, the Ohio Supreme Court upheld the conviction and death sentence but acknowledged that they were mentally retarded.
Then, in 2002 - a decade after the murder - the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Atkins v. Virginia that mentally retarded defendants were ineligible for the death penalty.
In light of the Atkins decision, the Hamilton County Common Pleas Court held a hearing in which it was determined that Gumm was mentally retarded and should be moved off death row. Bies' claim of mental retardation with the court is pending.
But the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that holding such hearings was prohibited under the double-jeopardy clause, which protects people from being tried twice for the same offense, because the Ohio Supreme Court had already accepted that they were mentally retarded. That court ruled that Bies' death sentence be set aside.
The state is arguing that the Ohio Supreme Court's "off-hand" comment that Bies' had "mild to borderline mental retardation" is not valid because the case was not about Bies' mental capacity; it was over whether or not to uphold the death penalty, which it did.
"The court found that the heinous and cruel nature of the crime, among other aggravating factors, outweighed this mitigating evidence (of Bies' mental retardation) beyond a reasonable doubt," the state argued in its petition to the Supreme Court.
It is also arguing that the double-jeopardy clause does not apply.
"A state post-conviction proceeding on the question of Bies's mental retardation does not twice put Bies in jeopardy because it does not expose him to the risk of additional criminal sanctions," the state said.
The U.S. Supreme Court must decide whether holding a post-conviction hearing to determine the mental capacity of anyone sentenced to death before the 2002 Atkins ruling violates double jeopardy.
A decision is expected in June.
If the state is successful, Bies would face a hearing in Hamilton County to determine his mental capacity. If, at that hearing, he is found to be mentally retarded, then his death sentence would be vacated. If not, then he would be put to death.
"Developmentally disabled individuals cannot be executed, period," Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray said in a statement Friday. "However, it is important that the proper procedures be followed to make that determination for any death row inmate."
"Ohio: condemned killer must prove disability again," is the AP report via the Lancaster Eagle-Gazette.
The state is fighting to reinstate the death sentence of a convicted
killer, arguing he must prove again that he is mentally disabled under
U.S. Supreme Court standards.
Ohio says the mental state of
Michael Bies has never received a proper hearing because state court
findings came six years before the Supreme Court in 2002 barred the
execution of the mentally disabled.
“You wouldn’t bother arguing
over whether somebody got one foot in bounds if the rule at the time
was they had to have two, but now that the rule’s been changed that one
matters, you might well have different things to say about that issue,”
said Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray.
Bies, 36, killed a 10-year-old boy in Cincinnati in 1992.
The
Supreme Court on Monday will hear Ohio’s challenge to a federal appeals
court decision last year that overturned Bies’ death sentence. A ruling
is expected by summer.
At least 85 death row inmates, including
four from Ohio, have successfully challenged their death sentences
under the 2002 decision.
Unlike Bies, those four used the
standards laid out by the high court. Bies (BEYE’-ess) bases his
argument on earlier rulings by state courts that upheld both his
conviction and his death sentence while acknowledging his low IQ of 69.
“Bies’s
personality disorder and mild to borderline mental retardation merit
some weight in mitigation,” the Ohio Supreme Court said in its 1996
decision upholding the sentence.
Bies argues the state would be
committing double jeopardy by holding a hearing on his mental
disability since state courts already determined his mental state.
The
U.S. Supreme Court defined mental disability as significantly
sub-average intellectual functioning, significant limitations in two or
more day-to-day skills and an onset of mental disability before age 18.
SCOTUS Blog has this preview of the oral argument prepared by Martine Cicconi. Here's an extended excerpt:
In Atkins v. Virginia (2002), the Supreme Court held that the execution of mentally retarded individuals violates the Eighth Amendment. On April 27, in No. 08-598, Bobby v. Bies, the Court will consider whether double jeopardy protections apply to a state post-conviction hearing to determine a death-sentenced inmate’s mental competency under Atkins, when the state supreme court has previously referenced the inmate’s “borderline mental retardation.”
Background
In 1992, Michael Bies was sentenced to death for the murder of a ten-year-old boy. At the penalty phase of his trial, Bies offered as mitigating evidence the testimony of a psychologist, who explained that his IQ fell within the range of mild to borderline mental retardation.
On direct appeal, the Ohio Supreme Court agreed that Bies’s “borderline mental retardation” warranted mitigation. But it nonetheless concluded that the aggravating circumstances of his crime outweighed the mitigating factors and affirmed his death sentence.
After his initial efforts to seek state post-conviction relief were unsuccessful, Bies filed a petition for habeas corpus in federal court, arguing that because he was mentally retarded, the Eighth Amendment prohibited his execution. Following the Atkins decision, the federal district court directed Bies to return to state court to seek relief. Bies thus filed a third petition for state post-conviction relief and then filed a motion for summary judgment. He argued that because the trial record established and the state supreme court recognized his retardation, double jeopardy now precluded the state from disputing it.
The Ohio Court of Common Pleas denied Bies’s motion for summary judgment. In that court’s view, the Ohio Supreme Court had not conclusively determined that Bies was mentally retarded because the state’s standard for finding retardation under Atkins was not established at the time the court reviewed his death sentence. Bies then returned to federal court to press his claims, this time successfully: the district judge granted his petition for habeas relief, agreeing that double jeopardy’s collateral estoppel component prevented the state from relitigating his mental capacity.
Ohio appealed, and the Sixth Circuit affirmed. Noting that an issue of ultimate fact cannot be re-litigated when it has been determined by a valid and final judgment, the Sixth Circuit used a four-part test to determine whether the state could contest Bies’s mental retardation. First, the court considered whether Bies had met the burden of demonstrating that the issue was actually decided in a previous proceeding. Rejecting the government’s argument that the standard for assessing mental retardation had not been established at the time of Bies’s direct appeal, the Sixth Circuit found that the state supreme court had determined Bies’s mental status based on the clinical definition of retardation — the same standard it used after Atkins. Next, the court concluded that the determination of Bies’s mental retardation was necessary to the outcome of his appeal because the Ohio Supreme Court was statutorily required to weigh all aggravating and mitigating factors when reviewing a death sentence. Moreover, the state had an opportunity to litigate the issue of Bies’s mental competency throughout his direct appeal. Lastly, the Sixth Circuit determined that the Ohio Supreme Court’s determination was final, and thus collateral estoppel precluded the state from disputing Bies’s mental retardation.
The Sixth Circuit also addressed whether the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA) limited the district court’s authority to grant Bies’s petition. Under AEDPA, a federal court may only issue a writ of habeas corpus if the inmate is in custody “pursuant to a state court decision that is contrary to or involved an unreasonable application of clearly established” Supreme Court precedent, or a decision based on “an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence.” Focusing on the latter provision, the Sixth Circuit found that the state post-conviction court had unreasonably analyzed the facts of the case when it found that the Ohio Supreme Court had not determined Bies’s mental retardation consistent with the post-Atkins standard. The Sixth Circuit noted that the state supreme court’s conclusion was based largely on the testimony of the psychologist who interviewed Bies; her extensive findings, the court reasoned, permitted a diagnosis of mental retardation consistent with the clinical definition. Because the clinical definition continues to be the appropriate standard for determining mental retardation post-Atkins, the state court’s conclusion was unreasonable in light of the evidence presented and therefore ripe for review by the federal courts.
SCOTUS Blog's sister site Scotus Wiki has the briefing in the case, here.
Comments