• Supreme Court to decide whether to hear South Dakota man's death penalty appeal
    15 replies, posted
https://rapidcityjournal.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/u-s-supreme-court-to-decide-whether-to-hear-rapid/article_363d9e80-7825-507e-99a4-a7c0ee2d7c7b.html The U.S. Supreme Court will soon decide whether it will hear the decades-old case of a man convicted of fatally stabbing a former co-worker at a Rapid City doughnut shop.  In 1993, a Pennington County jury agreed Charles Rhines was guilty of premeditated first-degree murder for stabbing Donnivan Schaeffer, a 22-year-old Rapid City man, in the stomach, back and skull. The jury also agreed Rhines should be given the death penalty rather than life in prison.  Early on in Rhines' appeals process, his petition says, his lawyers pointed to a jury note to the judge that asked if Rhines was sent to prison would he be able to "mix with the general inmate population," "marry or have conjugal visits," "be jailed alone or will he have a cellmate" and other questions.  Then in 2016, Rhines' new defense lawyers from the Federal Community Defender Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania (PFCDO) interviewed jurors who said they considered Rhines' sexual orientation when handing down the death penalty, the petition says.  "We also knew that he was a homosexual and thought that he shouldn't be able to spend his life with men in prison," one juror said in a sworn affidavit. Another said that jurors at the time of the sentencing said "that if he's gay, we'd be sending him where he wants to go if we voted for" life imprisonment.
I never expected to hear about such a bigoted jury outside of the deep south.
If this case gets upheld, I've officially lost all hope for this court.
hey look the scotus stepped into the death penalty for the 4th or 5th time in as many weeks and keeps showing exactly why this is an arbitrary capricious punishment that should just be done away with
At least hell would be more thought provoking. Our legal system is such a brute oppressive hierarchy that leeches upon the many to feed their stalwart.
can't wait for another 6-5
Well there's a chance it could be grounds for a mistrial as his sexual orientation did influence the jury. However, the question presented to the courts would be whether or not his sexual orientation and its influence on the jury would have had an effect on the ultimate verdict. From what I've read his crime would have been punishable by death regardless at the time, especially since it was a premeditated murder. Unless it can be proven that his sexual orientation was the driving force to the jury picking the death penalty then its hard to find grounds for a miss trial, especially if the argument for a miss trial is based on the word of one or two jurors.
Are you from the future? Did President Sanders actually start packing the courts? Cool, can't wait until 2021.
i can't count rip my life
SCOTUS has totally failed as an institution beyond all measures if the quotes in the OP are not construed as a bias toward his sentencing.
"The alleged juror comments here are not clear and explicit expressions of animus toward homosexuals," Ravnsborg added. "At best, they fall into the category of an 'offhand comment.'" He said racism has a more serious, violent and impactful history in the country than homophobia and is more protected by law. The state AG is saying this horseshit. Thomas and Alito at least will believe it.
""We also knew that he was a homosexual and thought that he shouldn't be able to spend his life with men in prison," one juror said in a sworn affidavit. Another said that jurors at the time of the sentencing said "that if he's gay, we'd be sending him where he wants to go if we voted for" life imprisonment. We can't send someone to jail who enjoys getting sodomized, so killing him is the only other option.
"racism is worse than homophobia" because gays have never been burned, firebombed, beat to death, dismembered, murdered or faced social and institutional discrimination to the same extent... well given the scotus doesn't think racism exists enough to warrant policing state's elections what else is new
How rich it is that the jurors are consciously aware of the absolute epidemic of rape in prison, and yet their thought is "hmm, this gay guy shouldn't go to prison because he'd like the rape, so might as well just kill him", and not, "wow prison is extremely fucked up we shouldn't send anyone there"
https://santamariatimes.com/news/national/govt-and-politics/supreme-court-rejects-death-row-appeal-over-anti-gay-juror/article_176c5963-d8bf-513d-a0f1-31ef7ac27122.html Turns out he already appealed to the court last year and was rejected then. The liberal justices did not dissent.
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