The Supreme Court ruling is here, in Adobe .pdf format. The ScotusWiki file, with all briefing, is here.
Today's New York Times carries the AP report, "Court Reinstates Death Sentence for Ohio neo-Nazi."
The Supreme Court on Tuesday reinstated for a second time the death sentence of a neo-Nazi convicted of murdering three men in Ohio more than a quarter century ago.
The justices ruled unanimously that a federal appeals court wrongly set aside the death sentence of Frank Spisak.
The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati found Spisak's trial lawyer was ineffective and that his jury received faulty sentencing instructions.
In an opinion by Justice Stephen Breyer, the high court said the 6th Circuit should have deferred to state court rulings that upheld Spisak's death sentence.
Spisak was convicted of three murders at Cleveland State University over a seven-month period in 1982 -- crimes he said were motivated by his hatred of gays, blacks and Jews. At the same time, Spisak claimed his crimes were sparked by mental illness related to confusion about his sexual identity. He wants to have surgery to become a woman.
The 1983 trial became a public spectacle as Spisak celebrated his killings in court and openly discussed his hateful views. He even grew a Hitler-style mustache, carried a copy of Hitler's book, ''Mein Kampf'' during the proceedings and gave the Nazi salute to the jury.
The 6th Circuit once before had thrown out Spisak's sentence only to be reversed by the Supreme Court.
Robert Barnes writes, "Killer Frank Spisak, not his attorney, brought on death penalty, justices rule," for today's Washington Post.
As jurors prepared to decide whether Ohio killer Frank G. Spisak Jr. should live or die, a lawyer told them this:
"Ladies and gentlemen, when you turn and look at Frank Spisak, don't look for good deeds, because he has done none. Don't look for good thoughts, because he has none. He is sick, he is twisted. He is demented, and he is never going to be any different."
That was Spisak's attorney talking. His unorthodox closing argument asked only that jurors take "pride" in their own "humanity" in making their decision.
But the Supreme Court essentially said Tuesday that when your client grows a mustache like Adolf Hitler's, admits to killing three people and wounding two, expresses remorse only about a victim who "wasn't Jewish like I thought he was," and says he would like to kill again, even a sterling closing argument is not likely to save him.
The court overturned a decision from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit and ruled that it was not ineffectiveness of counsel that earned Spisak a death sentence.
After jurors heard "Spisak's boastful and unrepentant confessions and his threats to commit further acts of violence," Justice Stephen G. Breyer wrote, "we . . . do not see how a less descriptive closing argument with fewer disparaging comments about Spisak could have made a significant difference."
He said there was no "reasonable probability that, but for the deficient closing, the result of the proceeding would have been different."
Spisak, who committed his crimes in and around Cleveland State University in the early 1980s, has bounced through a series of courts since, and his case was making its second appearance at the Supreme Court. The justices also rejected an argument that jury instructions were inadequate.
The Cleveland Plain Dealer has, "Execution for Nazi-loving Cleveland murderer can move forward, despite his lawyer's 'outrageous' representation," written by Stephen Koff.
Jack Torry writes, "Supreme Court upholds death sentence for neo-Nazi," for the Columbus Dispatch.
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