Like all potential jurors, potential jurors in Kentucky have
a constitutional right to be eligible to serve on a jury when qualified to do
so. Defendants like Mr. Wheeler also have a constitutional right to have such jurors
eligible to serve on a jury.
The February 20, 2015 decision by United States Court ofAppeals for the Sixth Circuit recognized these long-standing constitutional
rights and vindicated the rights of potential jurors, Kentucky residents.
Specifically, the Sixth Circuit
recognized that a juror was improperly excused from potential jury service in
Mr. Wheeler’s case. This constitutional violation goes to the heart of
“procedural fairness in administering the death penalty” and therefore required
vacating Mr. Wheeler’s death sentences. The Court identified the substantial
harm, “As the Supreme Court has observed, to permit the
for-cause exclusion of an
otherwise-eligible juror ‘unnecessarily narrows the cross-section of venire
members’ required under the Sixth Amendment and ‘stack[s] the deck against the
petitioner. To execute [such a] death sentence would deprive him of his life
without due process of law.’ Gray v. Mississippi, 481 U.S. 648, 658-59
(1987) (quoting Witherspoon v. Illinois, 391 U.S. 510, 523 (1968)).”
David Barron and Joe Flood represent Mr. Wheeler. The Sixth
Circuit decision is found at this link.
David Barron said, “Mr. Wheeler has been on death row for
approximately fourteen years. While this ruling takes a step towards protecting
the integrity of the judicial system and corrects an unconstitutionally imposed
sentence, it further calls into question the administration of the death
penalty and the fairness of the process of arriving at a death sentence, for it
took fourteen years for Mr. Wheeler’s constitutional rights to be vindicated
and an extraordinary amount of money expended during that time that could be
put to better use. For example, the money expended to seek a death sentence
against Mr. Wheeler and the Commonwealth’s efforts to uphold an
unconstitutional death sentence could have easily been used to for much needed
expenses towards solving cold cases or educating our youth so that it is less
likely they will later end up in the criminal justice system.”
