Ring v. Arizona
| Ring v. Arizona | |
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| Argued April 22, 2002 Decided June 24, 2002 |
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| Full case name | Timothy Stuart Ring v. Arizona |
| Citations | 536 U.S. 584 (more)
122 S. Ct. 2428; 153 L. Ed. 2d 556; 2002 U.S. LEXIS 4651; 70 U.S.L.W. 4666; 2002 Cal. Daily Op. Service 5594; 2002 Daily Journal DAR 7047; 15 Fla. L. Weekly Fed. S 464
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| Prior history | On writ of cert. to the Sup. Court of Arizona. State v. Ring, 200 Ariz. 267 |
| Holding | |
| Allowing sentencing judge, without jury, to find aggravating circumstance necessary for imposition of death penalty held to violate right to jury trial under Federal Constitution's Sixth Amendment. | |
| Court membership | |
| Case opinions | |
| Majority | Ginsburg, joined by Stevens, Scalia, Kennedy, Souter, Thomas |
| Concurrence | Scalia, joined by Thomas |
| Concurrence | Kennedy |
| Concurrence | Breyer |
| Dissent | O'Connor, joined by Rehnquist |
| Laws applied | |
| U.S. Const. amend. VI | |
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This case overturned a previous ruling or rulings
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| Walton v. Arizona (1990) | |
Ring v. Arizona, 536 U.S. 584 (2002), was a case in which the United States Supreme Court applied the rule of Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466 (2000), to capital sentencing schemes, holding that the Sixth Amendment requires a jury to find the aggravating factors necessary for imposing the death penalty. Ring overruled a portion of Walton v. Arizona, 497 U.S. 639 (1990), that had previously rejected this contention.
On November 28, 1994, an armored car parked in front of Arrowhead Mall in Glendale, Arizona, was robbed. The driver, John Magoch, was shot in the head as he exited the van to smoke, and died almost instantly. One of the robbers then drove the van to a church in nearby Sun City, where they made off with $562,000 in cash and $271,000 in personal checks. An informant tipped the police off to Timothy Ring and two of his friends, who had recently made expensive purchases such as a new truck. Police eventually discovered that Ring was the ringleader of the operation. Ring was later charged with capital first-degree murder under Arizona law.
The jury eventually convicted Ring of first-degree murder under a felony murder theory. But Ring could not be sentenced to death without further findings, and Arizona law provided that the judge alone would make these findings. After a sentencing hearing, at which Ring's accomplices testified, the judge found that two aggravating factors applied: that Ring had committed the murder in expectation of pecuniary gain and that he had committed the murder in an especially heinous, cruel, or depraved manner. Although he found that Ring had a "minimal" criminal record, the judge concluded that this did not outweigh the aggravating factors, and sentenced Ring to death.
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