reprieve

In late September 1981, the body of Texas Department of Public Safety Officer David Rucker was found beside his patrol car on a highway near Los Fresnos, Texas. At about the same time, Los Fresnos Police Officer Enrique Carrisalez stopped a speeding vehicle and was shot by the driver, dying nine days later. Petitioner Leonel Torres Herrera was arrested a few days after the shootings and charged with the capital murders of both officers. He was tried in January 1982, convicted of Carrisalez's capital murder, and sentenced to death; he pleaded guilty to Rucker's murder in July 1982. At Herrera's trial for Carrisalez's murder, eyewitness Enrique Hernandez identified him as the shooter from the patrol car. A declaration by the dying Carrisalez to the same effect was admitted. The speeding car was registered to Herrera's live-in girlfriend, and Herrera had keys to it in his pocket when arrested. Herrera's Social Security card was found at Rucker's scene. Blood spatters of type A, matching Rucker but not Herrera's type O, were found on the car and on Herrera's jeans and wallet. A handwritten letter found on Herrera when arrested strongly implied he had killed Rucker. Herrera's conviction was affirmed on direct appeal by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals in 1984, and the United States Supreme Court denied certiorari. His state habeas application was denied. A federal habeas petition challenging the identifications was denied by the Fifth Circuit in 1990, with certiorari denied by the Supreme Court. In 1990, Herrera filed a second state habeas petition raising a claim of actual innocence supported by affidavits from attorney Hector Villarreal and former cellmate Juan Franco Palacious, both stating that Herrera's brother Raul Herrera Sr., who died in 1984, had confessed to committing the murders. The state courts denied relief. In February 1992, Herrera filed his second federal habeas petition in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas, presenting those affidavits plus additional ones from Raul Herrera Jr. and Jose Ybarra Jr. claiming Raul Sr. had confessed and that Raul Jr. had witnessed the shootings. The District Court dismissed most claims as an abuse of the writ but granted a stay of execution to permit Herrera to present his actual innocence claim in state court. The Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit vacated the stay, holding that a claim of actual innocence without an accompanying constitutional violation is not cognizable on federal habeas corpus. The Supreme Court granted certiorari to review the case.

Southern Union Company is a natural gas distributor whose subsidiary stored liquid mercury at a facility in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. In September 2004 youths broke into the facility, played with the mercury, and spread it around the complex, leading to temporary displacement of residents and testing for mercury poisoning. In 2007 a grand jury indicted Southern Union on multiple counts of violating federal environmental statutes. The first count alleged that the company knowingly stored liquid mercury without a permit at the Pawtucket facility from on or about September 19, 2002 until on or about October 19, 2004, in violation of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976. A jury in the District Court for the District of Rhode Island convicted Southern Union on this count. The verdict form stated that Southern Union was guilty of unlawfully storing liquid mercury on or about September 19, 2002 to October 19, 2004. Violations of the RCRA are punishable by a fine of not more than $50,000 for each day of violation. At sentencing the probation office calculated a maximum fine of $38.1 million on the basis that Southern Union violated the RCRA for each of the 762 days from September 19, 2002 through October 19, 2004. Southern Union objected that this calculation violated Apprendi because the jury was not asked to determine the precise duration of the violation. The District Court held that Apprendi applies to criminal fines but concluded from the content and context of the verdict that the jury found a 762-day violation. The court therefore set a maximum potential fine of $38.1 million from which it imposed a fine of $6 million and a community service obligation of $12 million. On appeal the First Circuit rejected the District Court conclusion that the jury necessarily found a violation of 762 days but affirmed the sentence because it held that Apprendi does not apply to criminal fines. The Supreme Court granted certiorari to resolve the conflict.

Alvin Bernard Ford was convicted of murder in a Florida state court in 1974 and sentenced to death. There was no suggestion at the time that he was incompetent to stand trial or to be sentenced. In early 1982, while on death row, Ford began to exhibit bizarre behavior that grew more serious over time. After reading about a Ku Klux Klan rally, he developed an obsession with the Klan and delusions that he was the target of a conspiracy involving the Klan and prison guards, who he believed were holding 135 of his friends and family hostage in the prison and torturing his women relatives. He began referring to himself as Pope John Paul III and claimed to have fired prison officials and appointed new justices to the Florida Supreme Court. Ford's counsel arranged for examinations by two psychiatrists. Dr. Jamal Amin evaluated Ford over roughly 14 months using taped conversations, letters, interviews, and medical records and concluded that Ford suffered from a severe mental disease resembling paranoid schizophrenia with suicide potential. Dr. Harold Kaufman interviewed Ford in November 1983 and concluded that Ford had no understanding of why he was being executed, sincerely believed he would not be executed because he owned the prisons and could control the Governor through mind waves, and showed no signs of malingering. Pursuant to Florida Statute § 922.07, Ford's counsel invoked the state procedure for determining competency of a condemned inmate. The Governor appointed a panel of three psychiatrists who together interviewed Ford for approximately 30 minutes in the presence of eight other people. Each psychiatrist filed a separate two- or three-page report. Although the diagnoses differed, all three concluded that Ford had the mental capacity to understand the nature of the death penalty and the reasons why it was imposed on him. On April 30, 1984, the Governor signed a death warrant without explanation or statement. Ford's attorneys unsuccessfully sought a hearing in state court. They then filed a petition for habeas corpus in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida, proffering the conflicting findings and subsequent challenges by other psychiatrists. The District Court denied the petition without a hearing. The Court of Appeals affirmed, and the Supreme Court granted certiorari.