Walker v. Georgia

Cite as: 555 U. S. ____ (2008) 1 THOMAS, J., concurring SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES ARTEMUS RICK WALKER v. GEORGIA ON PETITION FOR WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE SUPREME COURT OF GEORGIA No. 08–5385. Decided October 20, 2008

JUSTICE THOMAS, concurring in the denial of the peti tion of certiorari.

Petitioner brutally murdered Lynwood Ray Gresham, and was sentenced to death for his crime. JUSTICE STEVENS objects to the proportionality review undertaken by the Georgia Supreme Court on direct review of peti tioner’s capital sentence. The Georgia Supreme Court, however, afforded petitioner’s sentence precisely the same proportionality review endorsed by this Court in McCleskey v. Kemp, 481 U. S. 279 (1987); Pulley v. Harris, 465 U. S. 37 (1984); Zant v. Stephens, 462 U. S. 862 (1983); and Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U. S. 153 (1976), and described in Pulley as a “safeguard against arbitrary or capricious sentencing” additional to that which is constitu tionally required, Pulley, supra, at 45. Because the Geor gia Supreme Court made no error in applying its statuto rily required proportionality review in this case, I concur in the denial of certiorari.

In May 1999, petitioner recruited Gary Lee Griffin to help him “rob and kill a rich white man” and “take the money, take the jewels.” Pet. for Cert. 5 (internal quota tion marks omitted); 282 Ga. 774, 774–775, 653 S. E. 2d 439, 443, (2007). Petitioner and Griffin packed two bicy cles in a borrowed car, dressed in black, and took a knife and stun gun to Gresham’s house. Petitioner lured Gresham outside, Pet. for Cert. 5, stabbed him 12 times in the chest and back, and dragged him to the side of the house to die, 282 Ga., at 775, 653 S. E. 2d, at 443. Griffin found Gresham’s wallet and house keys and gave the keys to petitioner, who said he had “ ‘one more to kill.’ ” Ibid.

However, because Mrs. Gresham and her daughter had been inside their house and had locked the door with chain and foot locks, petitioner did not succeed. The two men then fled the scene on their bicycles. Both were arrested within hours; petitioner was found with Gresham’s blood on his clothes and Gresham’s keys in his pocket. The knife used in the attack and a pistol were discovered nearby. Ibid.

Petitioner was charged with malice murder, felony murder, armed robbery, aggravated assault, attempted burglary, and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. Id., at 774, n. 1, 653 S. E. 2d, at 442, n. 1. A jury found him guilty on all charges and recommended the death penalty. Ibid. In particular, the jury unanimously found five aggravating factors: that the murder was committed while petitioner was engaged in an armed robbery; that the murder was committed for the purpose of receiving money or a thing of monetary value; that the murder involved torture; that the murder involved aggravated battery; and that the murder was outrageously or wan tonly vile, horrible, or inhuman in that it involved deprav ity of mind. Id., at 781, 653 S. E. 2d, at 447. The trial court agreed with the jury’s recommendation and imposed a sentence of death for the malice-murder conviction. The court also imposed a life sentence for armed robbery and consecutive sentences of 20, 10, and 5 years for the re maining convictions. Id., at 774, n. 1, 653 S. E. 2d, at 442, n. 1.

On direct appeal, the Georgia Supreme Court reviewed each statutory aggravating circumstance supporting the death sentence, see Ga. Code Ann. §17–10–35(c)(2) (2008), and struck two of them—murder involving torture and murder involving aggravated battery—because they var ied from the applicable statutory language, 282 Ga., at 781, 653 S. E. 2d, at 447; Ga. Code Ann. §17–10–30(b)(7).

With three valid statutory aggravating factors remaining and the full weight of the evidence supporting petitioner’s conviction, the Georgia Supreme Court found that peti tioner was eligible for the death sentence under state law.

The Georgia Supreme Court then reviewed petitioner’s death sentence to determine whether it was “excessive or disproportionate to the penalty imposed in similar cases, considering both the crime and the defendant.” Ga. Code Ann. §17–10–35(c)(3). The court first determined that the life sentence imposed on Griffin for the same murder did not render petitioner’s death sentence disproportionate.

Petitioner was more culpable for the murder, and Griffin was ineligible for the death penalty because he was ad judged mentally retarded. Id., at 782, 653 S. E. 2d, 447.

The Georgia Supreme Court then examined 21 cases in which a defendant received the death penalty for a “delib erate plan to kill and killing for the purpose of receiving something of monetary value.” Ibid., 653 S. E. 2d, 448.

After reviewing these cases, the court concluded that petitioner’s death sentence was proportional to other death sentences imposed in Georgia and affirmed. Ibid.

There is nothing constitutionally defective about the Georgia Supreme Court’s determination. Proportionality review is not constitutionally required in any form. Geor gia simply has elected, as a matter of state law, to provide an additional protection for capital defendants. Pulley, 465 U. S., at 45. In Pulley, the Court considered the his tory of Georgia’s capital sentencing scheme and dismissed JUSTICE STEVENS’ assertion that the constitutionality of Georgia’s scheme had rested on its willingness to conduct proportionality review. Id., at 44–46, 50; id., at 58–59 (STEVENS, J., concurring in part and concurring in judg ment). The Court explained that, although it may have emphasized the role of proportionality review as “an addi tional safeguard against arbitrarily imposed death sen tences” in Gregg, supra, and Zant, supra, it had never held that “without comparative proportionality review the [Georgia] statute would be unconstitutional.” Pulley, supra, at 50. JUSTICE STEVENS acknowledged in his Pul ley concurrence that his interpretation of Gregg and Zant differed from the Court’s. 465 U. S., at 54. He continues to adhere to his distinctive interpretation of Gregg and Zant today, ante, at 2–3, 6, and questions whether the Georgia scheme as currently administered provides the additional review that he believes is constitutionally required. But, under this Court’s precedents, Georgia is not required to provide any proportionality review at all.

Having elected to provide the additional protection of proportionality review, there can be no question that the way in which the Georgia Supreme Court administered that review in this case raised no constitutional issue.

The State’s proportionality review was lauded in Gregg as a protective measure that would ensure that “[i]f a time comes when juries generally do not impose the death sentence in a certain kind of murder case, . . . no defen dant convicted under such circumstances will suffer a sentence of death” because there will be no comparable cases to support a finding of proportionality. 428 U. S., at 206 (joint opinion of Stewart, Powell, and STEVENS, JJ.).

Then, in McCleskey, 481 U. S., at 306, this Court upheld the proportionality review conducted by the Georgia Su preme Court and recognized that the Georgia court’s conclusion was supported by “an appendix containing citations to 13 cases involving generally similar murders.’’1

In McCleskey, as here, the trial court followed the jury’s recommendation and imposed a death sentence for a black defendant who murdered a white victim during an armed robbery. Id., at 283–285; 282 Ga., at 774, 653 S. E. 2d at 442.

JUSTICE STEVENS nevertheless asserts that there is a “special risk of arbitrariness in cases that involve black defendants and white victims,” ante, at 3, and that the Georgia Supreme Court should have “looked outside the universe of cases in which the jury imposed a death sen tence,” ante, at 4–5. But he once again fails to acknowl edge that the Court considered and rejected similar argu ments in McCleskey, see 481 U. S., at 306–319. The McCleskey Court considered whether a study based on Georgia’s application of the death penalty in the 1970’s showed a “major systemic defec[t]” in sentencing that correlates with race. Id., at 313 (internal quotation marks omitted). And although that study found that the death penalty was imposed more often when a black defendant murdered a white victim than when a white defendant murdered a black victim, id., at 286, the Court concluded that the study “[a]t most . . . indicate[d] a discrepancy that appears to correlate with race,” id., at 312. According to the Court, “[a]pparent discrepancies are an inevitable part of our criminal justice system,” ibid., and there are other aspects of Georgia’s discretionary scheme that could ex plain the apparent discrepancy, id., at 311–313. The study did not “demonstrate a constitutionally significant risk of racial bias affecting the Georgia capital sentencing process.” Id., at 313.

The McCleskey Court also considered the universe of cases included in the Georgia Supreme Court’s propor tionality analysis and held that “absent a showing that the Georgia capital punishment system operates in an arbi trary and capricious manner, [a defendant] cannot prove a constitutional violation by demonstrating that other de fendants who may be similarly situated did not receive the death penalty.” Id., at 306–307 (emphasis in original).

The Court in Gregg also considered the issue and held that Georgia’s scheme would not be ineffective even if, in prac tice, the Georgia Supreme Court did not consider “nonap pealed capital convictions where a life sentence is imposed and cases involving homicides where a capital conviction is not obtained.” 428 U. S., at 204, n. 56 (joint opinion of Stewart, Powell, and STEVENS, JJ.).2 As a result, to the extent that JUSTICE STEVENS suggests that the Court’s precedent requires consideration of cases where the death penalty was not imposed, he is simply wrong.

JUSTICE STEVENS’ disagreement with this Court’s death penalty precedents formed the basis for his dissent from the Court’s decision in McCleskey and his concurrence in Pulley, and he stands by those decisions in his statement today. But McCleskey, Pulley, Zant, and Gregg remain the law. Because the Georgia Supreme Court applied them faithfully and without any error, I concur in the denial of certiorari.