SCOTUS is his last hope.
In South Dakota, Charles Rhines sits on death row as he has for over twenty-five years. After Mr. Rhines was convicted of murder, significant concerns arose that the jury chose to sentence him to death because he is gay.
The Sixth Amendment to our Constitution guarantees the right to an impartial jury to all defendants in criminal proceedings. A fundamental basis of our criminal legal system is that jurors must be fair and free of prejudice in their deliberations and in their decisions. And as Chief Justice Roberts has explained, “[o]ur law punishes people for what they do, not who they are.
Mr. Rhines has urged state and federal courts to review his case because of the Pena-Rodriguez decision and the new evidence that bias based on his sexual orientation played a role in jury’s decision to sentence him to death. So far, no court has heard this strong evidence of bias. And now, Mr. Rhines is again asking the Supreme Court to settle the important question of whether the rule they announced in Mr. Pena-Rodriguez’s case applies to Mr. Rhines.
There is a long, painful history of formal discrimination against lesbian, gay, and bisexual people that continues despite huge advancements in the law and in society. Within the past twenty-five years, less than the time Mr. Rhines has been on death row, the Supreme Court has recognized that laws based on moral objections against lesbian, gay, and bisexual people and that laws criminalizing them are unconstitutional.
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