self-killing

In 1969 William Henry Furman was convicted of murder in Georgia and sentenced to death under Ga. Code Ann. § 26-1005 (Supp. 1971), after which the Georgia Supreme Court affirmed the judgment in 225 Ga. 253, 167 S.E.2d 628 (1969). In the same year Lucius Jackson, Jr., was convicted of rape in Georgia and sentenced to death under Ga. Code Ann. § 26-1302 (Supp. 1971), and the same court affirmed that judgment in 225 Ga. 790, 171 S.E.2d 501 (1969). Also in 1969 Elmer Branch was convicted of rape in Texas and sentenced to death under Tex. Penal Code, Art. 1189 (1961), after which the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the judgment in 447 S.W.2d 932 (Ct. Crim. App. 1969). Each death sentence was imposed after a jury trial under a statute that left the choice between death and a lesser punishment to the uncontrolled discretion of the jury or judge, and the state courts upheld the convictions and sentences. The Supreme Court granted certiorari limited to the question whether the imposition and carrying out of the death penalty in these cases constitutes cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments, then consolidated the matters for argument in January 1972. The records showed that the three petitioners were Black men convicted of crimes against white victims. Furman had been diagnosed with mild mental deficiency and psychotic episodes associated with convulsive disorder, while Jackson and Branch had limited education and low intelligence scores. No standards guided the sentencing decision, and the penalty was imposed on only a trivial fraction of eligible offenders despite statutory authorization for these offenses.

On March 2, 1998, Patrick Kennedy called 911 at 9:18 a.m. to report that his eight-year-old stepdaughter L.H. had been raped in the side yard by two neighborhood boys who fled on a blue bicycle. Police arrived between 9:20 and 9:30 a.m. and found L.H. on her bed wrapped in a bloody blanket. She was bleeding profusely from severe vaginal injuries that included a laceration separating her cervix from the vagina and a torn perineum requiring emergency surgery at Children's Hospital. Kennedy initially told investigators that L.H. had been dragged from the garage to the yard. Both L.H. and Kennedy maintained this account in early interviews, including a three-hour videotaped session with a psychologist days after the assault. Physical evidence soon contradicted the yard account. The grass showed little disturbance except for coagulated blood. A bicycle found nearby had flat tires and spider webs. Blood was discovered on the underside of L.H.'s mattress inside the home. Kennedy had also made telephone calls before 7:37 a.m. inquiring how to remove blood from carpet. He had called a cleaning service. He did not contact 911 until roughly 9:18 a.m. Eight days after the crime, Kennedy was arrested. About a month later L.H. was removed from her mother's custody. On June 22, 1998, she first told her mother that Kennedy had raped her. In December 1999 she recorded a videotaped accusation at the Child Advocacy Center. The State charged Kennedy with aggravated rape of a child under twelve under La. Stat. Ann. § 14:42 and sought the death penalty. The trial began in August 2003 when L.H. was thirteen. She testified that Kennedy had been on top of her, had given her orange juice with chopped pills afterward, and had instructed her to blame neighborhood boys. The jury convicted Kennedy of aggravated rape. After hearing testimony from another child about prior sexual abuse by Kennedy, the jury unanimously sentenced him to death. The Louisiana Supreme Court affirmed the conviction and death sentence in 2007. The United States Supreme Court granted certiorari in 2008.

Respondent Francis Connelly approached Officer Patrick Anderson of the Denver Police Department on August 18, 1983, at approximately 2:40 p.m. and stated that he had killed someone and wanted to talk about it. Anderson immediately advised respondent of his Miranda rights. Respondent stated that he understood those rights but wanted to talk about the murder anyway. At this point, respondent stated that he had come all the way from Boston to confess to the murder of Mary Ann Junta, a young girl whom he had killed in Denver sometime during the month of November 1982. Respondent was then taken to police headquarters. A detective again advised him of his rights. After respondent answered that he understood them, he was asked to describe the murder in detail. Respondent gave a lengthy account including the location of the body, the date of the murder, the fact that he had used a blunt instrument in the killing, and that after killing the victim he had washed his knife in a nearby stream. After hearing this account, the detective arrested respondent for the murder of Mary Ann Junta. A search of the area where respondent said the body was located revealed the body of a young girl. The cause of death was determined to be a skull fracture. At a preliminary hearing, the psychiatrist who had examined respondent testified that at the time of the confession, respondent was clearly suffering from chronic schizophrenia and was in a psychotic state at least as of the time of his arrest. The psychiatrist testified that respondent's psychosis motivated his confession, that respondent was not capable of making a free and intelligent decision to confess, and that the confession was not voluntary. The trial court found that respondent's initial statement to Officer Anderson was involuntary and ordered that it be suppressed. The trial court also ruled that the subsequent statements made at the police station were tainted by the prior involuntary statement and ordered that they too be suppressed. The Colorado Supreme Court affirmed the suppression order. The United States Supreme Court granted certiorari to decide whether respondent's confession was obtained in a manner that violated the Due Process Clause.

Washington has prohibited assisting suicide since its territorial days. In 1854, the first Territorial Legislature outlawed assisting another in the commission of self-murder. The current statute, Wash. Rev. Code § 9A.36.060, provides that a person is guilty of promoting a suicide attempt when he knowingly causes or aids another person to attempt suicide, and classifies it as a class C felony punishable by up to five years imprisonment and a $10,000 fine. Washington's Natural Death Act, enacted in 1979, states that the withholding or withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment at a patient's direction shall not constitute a suicide, but the state has consistently rejected efforts to legalize physician-assisted suicide, including a 1991 ballot initiative defeated by voters. The respondents in this case are four physicians who practice in Washington and treat terminally ill patients, three terminally ill patients who sought to end their lives with physician assistance and have since died, and Compassion in Dying, a nonprofit organization that counsels people considering physician-assisted suicide. The physicians declared that they would assist their patients in ending their lives if not for the assisted-suicide ban. Petitioners are the State of Washington and its Attorney General. In January 1994, the respondents filed this action in the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington. They sought a declaration that Wash. Rev. Code § 9A.36.060 is unconstitutional on its face and an injunction against its enforcement. The District Court held that the statute was unconstitutional. A panel of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed that decision, but the full court sitting en banc reversed the panel and affirmed the District Court. The Supreme Court granted certiorari to review the case.

The Medicaid program was created in 1965 when Congress added Title XIX to the Social Security Act to provide federal financial assistance to states that choose to reimburse certain costs of medical treatment for needy persons. Participation in the program is voluntary, but once a state elects to participate, it must comply with federal requirements including coverage of five general categories of medical services for the categorically needy. From the program's inception, federal funding was available for medically necessary abortions. In September 1976, Congress enacted the first version of the Hyde Amendment as part of the annual appropriations bill for the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. This prohibited the use of federal funds to pay for abortions except when the life of the mother would be endangered if the fetus were carried to term. Subsequent versions applicable to fiscal years 1977 through 1980 varied in scope. The 1980 version added exceptions for rape and incest reported promptly to law enforcement or a public health service. Earlier versions included or excluded an exception for severe and long-lasting physical health damage to the mother. On September 30, 1976, the day the initial Hyde Amendment was enacted, Cora McRae, a New York Medicaid recipient in the first trimester of a pregnancy she wished to terminate, the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation, which operates hospitals providing abortion services, and other plaintiffs filed suit in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York against the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare seeking to enjoin enforcement of the funding restriction. The District Court certified the case as a class action on behalf of all pregnant or potentially pregnant women in New York eligible for Medicaid who decide to have an abortion within the first twenty-four weeks of pregnancy and all authorized providers of abortion services to such women. It entered a preliminary injunction. After this Court decided Beal v. Doe and Maher v. Roe, the District Court vacated the injunction and remanded for reconsideration. On remand, additional plaintiffs intervened, including four individual Medicaid recipients seeking medically necessary abortions, several physicians who perform abortions for Medicaid recipients, and the Women's Division of the Board of Global Ministries of the United Methodist Church along with two of its officers. An amended complaint challenged multiple versions of the Hyde Amendment on statutory and constitutional grounds. Following a lengthy trial that produced a record exceeding five thousand pages of transcript and more than four hundred exhibits, the District Court rejected the plaintiffs' statutory claim but held that the Hyde Amendment violated the equal protection component of the Fifth Amendment and the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment. The court recertified the case as a nationwide class action on behalf of all pregnant and potentially pregnant women eligible for Medicaid who wish to have medically necessary abortions and all authorized providers of such abortions. It then ordered the Secretary to cease giving effect to the Hyde Amendment and to continue authorizing federal matching funds for medically necessary abortions. The Secretary appealed directly to this Court, which noted probable jurisdiction.