Law in five states overturned, affecting six cases out of Yuma County

Juries, not judges, must make the crucial decisions that determine whether a convicted killer lives or dies, the Supreme Court said Monday in a ruling that potentially could overturn six death sentences out of Yuma County.

The 7-2 ruling capped a court term that death penalty opponents called the most promising in a quarter-century.

The high court declared the sentencing laws of five states unconstitutional. The ruling called into question whether 168 death row inmates in those states will be put to death, and it also could affect some inmates sentenced in four other states, lawyers said.

Yuma County Superior Court Judge Thomas Thode said Monday he couldn't comment on the case since he sentenced one of the death penalty inmates from Yuma County and the case may come back to him. None of the county's other Superior Court judges could be reached immediately for comment Monday.

Thode had sentenced Bobby Tankersly, 50, to death in May 1994 for killing 65-year-old Thelma Younkin in a Yuma motel room.

Other death row inmates from Yuma County include Fred Robinson, 61, and Theodore Washington, 42, who were sentenced in January 1988 in the same case - the shotgun slaying of a Yuma woman.

Also sentenced to death were Bernard Smith, 48, for the February 1984 slaying of Yuma grocery clerk Charles Pray during a robbery, and Gregory Dickens, 37, who was convicted in December 1993 of killing a college couple, Bryan and Laura Bernstein, at rest stop near Telegraph Pass.

Alvie Kiles, 41, was convicted and sentenced in March 1990 for killing a Yuma woman, Valerie Gunnell, and her two daughters, LeCresha and Shemaeah. His conviction was overturned, but he was convicted again in a second trial. He is awaiting resentencing.

Also on death row is Richard Bible, 40, convicted in Coconino County in June 1990 for killing Jennifer Marie Wilson, a girl from Yuma, in the Flagstaff area.

The Constitution guarantees a trial by a jury and that right extends to weighing whether a particular killing merits death or life in prison, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote for an unlikely alliance of conservative and liberal-leaning justices.

The court rejected arguments from Arizona, where Monday's case originated, that judges can be more evenhanded and less emotional than juries.

''The Sixth Amendment jury trial right ... does not turn on the relative rationality, fairness or efficiency of potential fact-finders,'' Ginsburg wrote for herself and Justices John Paul Stevens, Antonin Scalia, Anthony M. Kennedy, David H. Souter and Clarence Thomas. Justice Stephen Breyer wrote separately to agree with the outcome.

Neither this case nor last week's ruling exempting mentally retarded people from the death penalty directly attacks the constitutionality of capital punishment for the general population.

Still, these and other rulings this term questioned the way states carry out the death penalty, and may open the door for wider examination of the practice, lawyers and death penalty opponents said.

''When you take last week's ruling and this one combined, this is the most favorable Supreme Court term in a quarter century,'' for those who want to see the practice ended, said David Elliot, spokesman for the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty.

The Supreme Court allowed states to resume executions in 1976 after a brief national hiatus.

Nationwide, about 3,700 inmates await execution in the 38 states that allow capital punishment.

In Arizona, Idaho, Montana, Colorado and Nebraska, a jury determines guilt or innocence, but one or more judges then evaluates whether the particulars of the case make it worthy of the death penalty - for example, if a murder was especially atrocious or if it was committed for money.

The case is Ring v. Arizona, 01-488.

Staff Writer Loren Listiak contributed this report.