Re-print from The South Bend Tribune
South Bend, Indiana
June 25, 2002

Ruling could spare 6 on Indiana's death row

Court:  Jury must decide capital sentence

By TOM COYNE

A U.S. Supreme Court ruling Monday overturning death sentences of dozens of convicted killers could affect six people on death row in Indiana, state Attorney General Steve Carter said.

The attorney general's office was analyzing the decision to determine its impact, Carter said in a statement.  Defense attorneys, however, said they believe it could have a far broader impact.

"Arguably, everyone on death row--even in situations where juries recommended death sentences--could be affected," said Paula Sites, a staff lawyer for the Indiana Public Defender Council.  "There is a legal argument there that the fact they were told that their decison was just a recommendation and was not binding could have affected the sentences."

A message seeking further comment from the attorney general's office was not returned.

Juries, not judges must make the crucial decisoins that mean a convicted killer lives or dies, the Supreme Court ruled, a finding that could overturn scores of death sentences nationwide.

The ruling capped a court term that death penalty opponents called the most promising in a quarter century.

The high court declared the sentencing laws of  five states unconstitutional.  The ruling called into question whether 168 death row inmmates in those states will be put to death, and it also could affect some inmates sentenced in four other states, lawyers said.

The 7-2 ruling affects the system in which judges have the final say after a jury convicts someone of murder.

The constitution guarentees a trial by jury, and that right would be "senselessly diminished" if jurors did not also weigh whether a particular killing merits death or life in prison, Justice Ruth Bader Gisburg wrote for an unlikely alliance of conservative and liberal-leaning justices.

The court rejected arguments from Arizona, where Monday's case originated, that judges can be more evenhanded and less emotional than juries.

Indiana now has 34 people under death sentences and the state is challenging decisions to overturn the death penalties of four others who officially remain on death row. 

Three of those people were sentenced to death by a judge even though a jury recommended that they not be executed.

"I'm hopeul that it will call into question at least those three men on Indiana's death row whose juries unanimously recommended that they not receive the death penalty," said Steve Schutte, deputy to the public defender of Indiana.

Those three are:

• Benny Saylor, convicted in the 1992 kidnapping and slaying of Edgewood resident Judy VanDuyn.
   
• Obadyah Ben-Yisrayl, formerly known as Christopher Peterson, who was convicted in 1992 of killin four people in Lake and Porter counties in a series of shootings.
   
• William Minnick, convicted of raping and killing Martha Payne in her Greencastle home in 1981.  Minnick's death penalty was overturned by U.S. District Court Judge Allen Sharp because the sentencing judge ignored the jury's recommendation.

The state is appealing that ruling and a federal appeals court said it was awaiting the Supreme Court decison handed down Monday before considering the appeal.

Three others in Indiana were sentenced to death even though juries could not reach a decision on a jury recommendation.  They are:

• Eric D. Holmes, convicted in the 1989 murders of two Shoney's restaurant workers in Indianapolis after he was fired from his job there.
   
• Edward Earl Williams, convicted in the murder of three people during a botched robbery attempt in Lake County in 1992.
   
• Charles Roche, convicted of killing three people in his Hammond home and dumping their bodies in Gary.  Sharp overturned Roche's death sentence in February 2001, ruling he had received ineffective legal counsel.  The state is appealing.

One of the nine people put to death in Indiana since the Supreme Court restored the death penalty in 1976 had a deadlocked jury on sentencing but a judge sentenced him to death.  Gary Burris was executed on Nov. 20, 1997, for the 1980 slaying of an Indianapolis cab driver.