User:Nukerebel/Whitmore v. Arkansas

Whitmove v. Arkansas, 495 U.S. 149 (1990), is a U.S. Supreme Court Case that held that the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments do not require mandatory appellate review of death penalty cases, and that individuals cannot file cases as next friend without prior relationship to the appellant.

The Case
Ronald Gene Simmons was convicted of the murder of sixteen people and sentenced to death. Arkansas state law did not require appellate review of capital sentences, and Simmons chose to contest neither the conviction nor the sentence, in fact, requesting a speedy execution: "'I, Ronald Gene Simmons, Sr., want it to be known that it is my wish and my desire that absolutely no action by anybody be taken to appeal or in any way change this sentence. It is further respectfully requested that this sentence be carried out expeditiously.'" Arkansas state law allowed the waiving of capital appeals so long as a separate hearing determined the competence of the condemned man. Simmons' competence verified and his execution was to proceed when a fellow death row inmate, Jonas Whitmore, filed suit against the state of Arkansas both for himself and on the behalf of Simmons. Whitmore, who had exhausted his direct line of appeals within the state was about to pursue habeas claims in federal court. Whitmore wanted to see Simmons' case appealed within Arkansas because he believed that if his habeas plea in the federal courts was successful and he was granted a new trial in which he was convicted anew, during sentencing review, his single murder would look far less worse than Simmons' massacre of sixteen. Whitmore's attempt to force Simmons's case into appeal was three-pronged, arguing that:
 * He suffered injury by Simmons' lack of appeal and therefore the absence of Simmons' murder being considered during comparative review.
 * Lack of appellate review violated the constitution's protections against cruel and unusual punishment and due process
 * Whitmore also filed as next friend to Simmons, trying to force, in Simmons' name, the appeal that Simmons himself refused.

Opinion
The Court ruled against Whitmore on April 24, 1990, with Chief Justice Rehnquist writing for the majority of seven.
 * Whitmore's "hypothetical" claim of injury was rejected as Whitmore could not prove that Simmons' appeal would change the outcome of a future sentencing review for Whitmore. Furthermore, that mandatory appellate review of Simmons' case was not a right "granted to [Whitmore] personally."
 * While Simmons had the right to appellate review, it did not violate the Eighth Amendment's prohibition on "cruel and unusual punishment" for Simmons to not be forced to request appellate review, and thus Whitmore had not cause for action as an interested member of the public.
 * Lastly, Whitmore was ineligible to file suit as next friend because Simmons, as an evidentiary hearing had shown, “[had] given a knowing, intelligent, and voluntary waiver of his right to proceed, and his access to court [was] otherwise unimpeded.” Next friend was designed for cases where the real party in interest is “unable to litigate his own cause due to mental incapacity, lack of access to court, or other similar disability.”

Subsequent Application

 * Whitmore was cited in the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals' decision in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld to deny both Christian Peregrim, a private citizen, and Frank Dunham, a public defender for the Eastern District of Virgina, next of friend standing to request habeas relief for Yaser Hamdi, an American-born resident of Kuwait who was captured in Afghanistan.

Postscript
Ronald Gene Simmons was executed by lethal injection on June 25, 1990. Jonas Whitmore was executed on May 11, 1994.