Consistency Is the Hobgoblin of Small Courts

Bob over at Decision of the Day notes a very interesting en banc decision from the Sixth Circuit today. In brief, John Santine hired three guys to kill a business rival (the lawn care biz in the Midwest is pretty vicious). Two of them pleaded guilty to avoid getting the death penalty. Santine went to trial and was convicted of aggravated murder, but not capital murder, and got life in prison. One of the hitters, Getsy, also went to trial and was convicted of capital murder, but not the lesser included offense of aggravated murder, and was sentenced to death.

Santine and Getsy's convictions are on mutually exclusive theories - Santine's jury didn't believe that he hired hitters (but was somehow involved in the murder), while Getsy's jury believed he was hired by Santine to do the hit. In a federal habeas proceeding, Getsy basically argued that different juries can't return such contradictory verdicts. A panel of the Sixth Circuit agreed and vacated Getsy's death sentence. Rehearing en banc, the entire court (by an 8-6 vote) reversed and upheld the death sentence:

The majority explains that there is 'simply no constitutional guarantee that [Getsy’s] jury would reach the same results as prior or future juries dealing with similar facts.' All that matters is the due process requirement that the conviction was based on sufficient evidence, which it was.

I had a similar case when I worked in state court. My client and a codefendant robbed and murdered a man and drove his Jeep to Cleveland. Cleveland cops busted into the hotel room and arrested them, finding incriminating evidence in the process. They were prosecuted separately and each move to suppress the evidence recovered in Cleveland. Both lost suppression motions, went to trial, and were convicted. On appeal, the codefendant won on the suppression issue and eventually copped a plea to a lesser offense. My client, on the other hand, lost on appeal and was stuck with his life sentence. We weren't successful in habeas proceedings making arguments similar to Getsy's.

The lesson? Don't expect logical consistency from the criminal justice system. It'll just make your head hurt.