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USA: SUPREME COURT IS STARTING A NEW TERM
October 5, 2015: The Supreme Court is starting a new term. The 9 justices are meeting in public Monday for the first hearing of the new session. Noteworthy cases to be decided next term (by the end of June 2016) include:
Disqualifying black potential jurors: A black death-row inmate from Georgia, Timothy Tyrone Foster, says notes from the prosecutor show he excluded all four black potential jurors and purposely seated an all-white jury in this case. The case is Foster v. Humphrey.
Judicially imposed death sentence: A death penalty case from Florida, where death row inmate Timothy Lee Hurst questions whether judges, rather than juries, can impose a death sentence, especially when the jury is not unanimous in recommending death. The case is Hurst, Timothy L. v. Florida. Judicial Bias. A case from Pennsylvania challenging former Pennsylvania Supreme Court Chief Justice Ronald Castille's participation in an appeal of a case that had been tried in Philadelphia while Castille was the city's district attorney. Terrance Williams was convicted and sentenced to death in Philadelphia in 1984. Williams was 18 at the time of the murder. His death sentence was reversed days before his scheduled execution in 2012 because prosecutors under Castille's tenure had withheld information that the victim, a church deacon, had sexually abused teenagers he had met through his church and that the trial prosecutor knew that the victim had sexually abused Williams. In 2014, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court reinstated Williams' death sentence. Williams' lawyers asked Castille to recuse himself from the case, saying he had "personally approved the decision to pursue capital punishment" against Williams, continued to head the office when it defended the death verdict on appeal, and, in his electoral campaign for the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, had touted "the number of defendants he had 'sent' to death row, including Williams." Castille denied the motion for recusal and authored a concurring opinion that criticized Williams' lawyers and the judge who had ruled in Williams' favor. The case is Williams v. Pennsylvania.
Juvenile life without parole: A Louisiana inmate in prison since 1963, Charles Hurt, wants the justices to rule that their 2012 decision outlawing mandatory life sentences with no chance of release for young killers also should apply to past cases. The case is Montgomery v. Louisiana. (Sources: Associated Press, 05/10/2015)
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