The United States Supreme Court is expected to conference on Charles Rhines’s petition for certiorari on April 12, 2019. Rhines is a gay man on death row in South Dakota. New evidence shows that jurors who sentenced him to death knew that Rhines was a homosexual and reasoned that he should not be permitted to spend his life with men while in prison.
Rhines’s petition argues that he should be allowed to present this new evidence to show that the jurors’ anti-gay bias deprived him of his rights to a fair trial and due process under the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments. As my colleague, Jordan Blair Woods, has observed, sufficient research exists to demonstrate “how challenges linked to sexuality and gender identity in criminal courts can compromise legitimacy and fairness in the criminal justice system.” The Rhines petition presents the Supreme Court with an important opportunity to address that concern head-on.
The background
From 1991-92, Charles Russell Rhines worked at the Dig ‘Em Donut Shop on West Main Street in Rapid City, South Dakota. Rhines was terminated from his job in February of 1992. Then, on March 8, 1992, the body of Donnivan Schaeffer, a Dig ‘Em Donuts employee, was discovered in the donut shop’s storeroom. Schaeffer had been stabbed and his hands were bound. Approximately $3,300 was missing from the store. Rhines was charged with third-degree burglary of the store and first-degree murder of Schaeffer.
In January of 1993, Rhines stood trial in the Seventh Judicial Circuit Court of Pennington County, South Dakota, for Schaeffer’s murder. Before trial, Rhines’s attorneys asked prospective jurors if they had any anti-gay bias that would prevent them from giving Rhines a fair trial. The jurors selected to hear his case said they could be fair and free of prejudice. At trial, the jury heard through witnesses presented by the state that Rhines was gay and had relationships with other men. Rhines was ultimately convicted of premeditated first-degree murder for Schaeffer’s death.
Jurors were then asked to choose between life in prison without parole and the death penalty. During their deliberations, the jury sent a note to the judge showing that deliberations had become infected with anti-gay stereotypes and prejudices. Among other things, the jurors asked whether Rhines would be allowed to: “mix with the general inmate population;” “create a group of followers or admirers;” “brag about his crime to other inmates, especially new and/or young men jailed for lesser crimes;” be “jailed alone or … have a cellmate;” or “marry or have conjugal visits.”
The judge did not address these questions. The same day, about eight hours later, the jury voted to sentence Rhines to death. Jurors who voted for death expressed a desire to prevent Rhines from serving a life sentence “with men in prison” or enjoying “conjugal visits.”
On Feb. 15, 2019, Rhines filed a petition for certiorari to the Supreme Court. In short, Rhines argues that reasonable jurists could debate whether he made a substantial showing of a violation of his right to an impartial jury with evidence that at least one juror relied on anti-gay stereotypes and animus in sentencing him to death.
The state of the law
Jurors historically have not been allowed to impeach their verdicts. But in 2017, in Pena-Rodriguez v. Colorado, two jurors came forward to state that a third juror, during deliberations on guilt in a noncapital case, had expressed anti-Hispanic bias toward the defendant and the defendant’s alibi witness. The Supreme Court held that the Sixth Amendment required the trial court to consider the evidence that the juror relied on racial stereotypes or animus and the state rule against inquiring into jury deliberations had to give way. Specifically, it wrote that the Sixth Amendment right to a fair and impartial jury allows for jury impeachment in cases “where a juror makes a clear statement that indicates he or she relied on racial stereotypes or animus to convict a criminal defendant.” The ruling, according to the Court, was designed to “ensure that our legal system remains capable of coming ever closer to the promise of equal treatment under the law that is so central to a functioning democracy.”
Rhines argues that the rationale of Pena-Rodriguez should apply to his case to invalidate his death sentence. But Pena-Rodriguez’s holding that racial bias during deliberations permits jury impeachment was premised on the racial origin of the Fourteenth Amendment. Accordingly, the case has exacerbated the existing split among courts over whether evidence of other bias during deliberations allows for jury impeachment.
So what’s new?
New evidence confirms that Rhines’ sexual orientation was a focal point for jury deliberations. Three jurors have made statements indicating that anti-gay prejudices played a significant role in the jury’s decision to impose the death penalty instead of life without the possibility of parole. One juror stated that the jury “knew that [Rhines] was a homosexual and thought that he shouldn’t be able to spend his life with men in prison.” Another juror recalled a juror commenting that “if he’s gay, we’d be sending him where he wants to go if we voted for [life without parole].” A third juror confirmed that “[t]here was lots of discussion of homosexuality. There was a lot of disgust. This is a farming community . . . . There were lots of folks who were like, ‘Ew, I can’t believe that.’”
Why does it matter?
Rhines contends that he was denied his Sixth Amendment right to an impartial capital sentencing jury because anti-gay bias infected the jury’s decision-making. Pena-Rodriguez, where the Court intervened to ensure the right to an impartial jury, was a noncapital case. The need for the Court’s review is therefore more urgent because Rhines faces the death penalty. As Rhines’s petition states, “[a]nti-gay bias, if left unaddressed, risks systemic harm to the justice system and, in particular, capital jury sentencing.”
But at its core, the Rhines cert petition is really about the reach, if any, of Pena-Rodriguez alongside the Supreme Court’s willingness to peer further inside the jury room. Of course, that assumes that further scrutiny is necessary and that Pena-Rodriguez does not already apply here. After all, reasonable jurists could debate whether Pena-Rodriguez applies not only to racial bias in jury factfinding regarding guilt, but also to anti-gay bias in capital jury sentencing.
At a broader level, the Rhines petition is also about the role of stereotypes influencing the jury room—particularly in the context of sexual orientation. The judiciary has recognized that anti-gay bias may prejudice a defendant. The Supreme Court recently observed that “[u]ntil the mid–20th century, same-sex intimacy long had been condemned as immoral by the state itself in most Western nations, a belief often embodied in the criminal law.” Lower courts have also recognized the harmful effects of anti-gay stereotypes, including those that offensively characterize gays and lesbians as “promiscuous, … ‘disease vectors’ or child molesters.” The Rhines petition presents the Supreme Court with an important opportunity to evaluate what role those biases and stereotypes may properly play in deliberations.
Here’s my perspective: this petition matters and merits Supreme Court review. The stereotypes and disapproval of Rhines’s sexual orientation cannot stand as an influence on the jurors’ decision to sentence him to death. Juries no doubt have discretion during deliberations, but surely that discretion does not extend to allowing racial and anti-gay prejudices to affect their votes. If racial bias in the determination of guilt was intolerable in Pena-Rodriguez, then so too was the anti-gay bias present in Rhines’s sentencing. And remember, this is a death case; as the Court has long-recognized, death is different from all other punishments and requires a greater degree of scrutiny.
Leading civil rights groups and law professors are urging the Court to accept Rhines’s petition. NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund has filed an amicus brief that urges the Court to apply the reasoning of Pena-Rodriguez to Rhines’s case because “while different from its history of racial discrimination, America has a long and horrible history of anti-gay discrimination.” In addition, seven other civil rights groups have filed an amici brief that documents the history of discrimination against gay, lesbian, and bisexual people in America. The amici state that the courts should be allowed to hear Rhines’s evidence that at least one juror sentenced him to death based on the harmful stereotype that, as a gay man, he would enjoy the alternative of life in prison with other men.
Forty-seven law professors who teach evidence and criminal procedure have also urged the Court to accept Rhines’s petition for certiorari and hold that jury deliberations must be free of anti-gay bias, just as they must be free of race and gender discrimination. Formal filings aside, the mainstream media is taking notice of the Rhines petition. Slate, The New York Times, and Jurist have all recently noted the role that Rhines’s case can play in eradicating anti-gay bias from the jury room.
Approximately 7,000-8,000 cert petitions are filed each term and, from those filings, the Court grants certiorari and hears oral argument in roughly 80 cases. Or, stated differently, a petition has about 0.11% likelihood of being granted. Perhaps the Supreme Court will agree that the Rhines petition merits inclusion in that percentage.
Great post! And Professor Woods’ work is outstanding.
Posted by: Michael Higdon | April 05, 2019 at 12:30 PM
Those interested in Charles Rhimes' case may be interested in a law review article I published in 2008, The Geronimo Bank Murders: A Gay Tragedy. The article is about Jay Neill's case that was tainted by virulent anti-gay prejudice and ended in Neill's execution.Capital punishment operates as a particularly brutal way to express societal condemnation, and there are too many cases of sexual minorities being condemned. I hope that Rhimes will get a better result than Neill. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2184888
Posted by: Joan Howarth | April 07, 2019 at 09:15 PM