Wheeler v. Simpson

In 1997, Louisville police discovered the bodies of two people in their apartment. The male victim had nine stab wounds. The pregnant female victim died as a result of manual strangulation and was stabbed after she was dead. Wheeler, ultimately convicted of the murders, changed his story several times. He eventually admitted being in the apartment on that night, after the male victim was stabbed, but claimed that the assailant was inside the apartment and that he and that person fought, resulting in his wounds. The Sixth Circuit held that a writ of habeas corpus must issue as to the death sentence because the trial court erroneously struck from the jury Kovatch, an eligible juror who may have been in favor of sparing Wheeler’s life. The court, after examination of Kovatch, found him not to be “problematic” as a juror but one who “could consider the entire range” of penalties. The next day the court excused him because the judge mistakenly remembered him saying he would not consider the death penalty. As a matter of procedural fairness in administering the death penalty, the Supreme Court has observed, the for-cause exclusion of an otherwise-eligible juror unnecessarily narrows the cross-section of venire members required under the Sixth Amendment. View "Wheeler v. Simpson" on Justia Law