Court overturns Ohio death-penalty law

Press, 5 July 1978, Page 8

Court overturns Ohio death-penalty law

NZPA Washington The United States Supreme Court has ended its 1977-78 term with a climatic ruling striking down the capital-punishment law in Ohio, where 101 prisoners were under sentence of death. Chief Justice Warren Burger, writing the leading opinion for a splintered Court, said the Ohio law failed to meet the Constitution’s requirement for “individualised consideration” in each capital case. Speaking for himself and three other judges, Justice Burger said sentencing judges and juries must be allowed to consider “any as-

pect of a defendant’s character or record” or circumstances of the crime raised by the defence that might preclude imposition of the death penalty. There was no majority for any one point of view of the Court. But all the judges except Justice William Rehnquist. who dissented, and Justice William Brennan, who did not participate, joined the ultimate decision to overturn the Ohio death sentences of Sandra Lockett and Willie Lee Bell, whose appeals were at issue. Only a few hours after the Supreme Court handed down its death-penalty decision, an Ohio State legislator — Representative Terry Tranter of Cincinnati — introduced a bill to re-enact a capital-

punishment law conforming with the guidelines. He said he had prepared the bill in anticipation the law would be ruled unconstitutional. The Court also dealt a final blow to a similar law in Pennsylvania, where all those previously on death row have had their sentences commuted since lower courts ruled the statute unconstitutional. It dashed final attempts to preserve portions of New York’s 1974 capital-punish-ment law which has been ruled unconstitutional. Noone is on death row in the empire State. The governors of both New York and Pennsylvania have vetoed recent legislative efforts to re-enact the death penalty.