Since the early 1970's, judges in Arizona, Idaho and Montana have been considering additional evidence once the juries have been dismissed and consequently judges have independently been sentencing people to death. It is unconstitutional for a judge to use additional evidence to sentence a person to death without the presence of a jury.
On December 6th 1996, a man called Timothy Ring was sentenced to death by a judge in Arizona under these circumstances. Timothy Ring brought the state of Arizona to court, pointing out that he was sentenced to death unconstitutionally.
1) Timothy Ring won his case in the U.S Supreme Court on 24th June 2002. This is now known as the RING DECISION.
2) The Ring decision opened up a question mark over the other 797* inmates who have also been unconstitutionally sentenced to death. Not only in the states of Arizona, Idaho, Montana but also including Nebraska, Colorado, Alabama, Delaware and Florida.
3) Because of the outcome from the Ring decision the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals decided (in the SUMMERLIN DECISION) that this earlier ruling, the Ring Decision, should stand for all death row inmates sentenced to death unconstitutionally.
4) Under this ruling Arizona accepted its unconstitutional practices and changed its laws to comply.
5) However, Arizona is now appealing the Summerlin decision hoping not to have to apply the law to those inmates all ready sentenced to death.
6) Arizona is thereby attempting to keep 129* inmates on death row who were unconstitutionally put there in the first place.
Please show your support for the Summerlin decision by signing this petition, asking that Arizona should loose its appeal in the U.S Supreme Court. Should we allow this law to be ignored or over-ruled we are setting up a dangerous precedent.
* This is the number of inmates published in 2002 after the Ring decision was announced. Numbers may have altered slightly in the interim.
RING DECISION: Ring v. Arizona, 536 U.S 584 (2002)
SUMMERLIN DECISION: Summerlin v Arizona No. 98 - 99002 D.C No. CV - 86- 00584 - ROS
