South Dakota man executed for 1992 stabbing death of doughnut shop co-worker
(Reuters) - A South Dakota man convicted of fatally stabbing a former doughnut shop co-worker during a 1992 burglary was put to death by lethal injection on Monday night, after the U.S. Supreme Court denied three 11th-hour petitions to stay his execution.
Charles Rhines, 63, whose lawyers argued that his death sentence was tainted by anti-gay bias toward him on the part of jurors, was pronounced dead at 7:39 p.m. CST at the South Dakota State Penitentiary in Sioux Falls, prison spokesman Michael Winder said.
Rhines’ execution had been scheduled for early in the afternoon but was delayed for several hours while state corrections officials awaited word from the U.S. Supreme Court on his final appeals.
All three applications for a stay were rejected by the high court on Monday evening.
Rhines, a high school dropout, was found guilty of murdering Donnivan Schaeffer, 22, an employee at Dig ‘Em Donuts in Rapid City, during a burglary of the doughnut shop on March 8, 1992, weeks after Rhines had quit working there.
Schaeffer was found stabbed to death inside the shop, his hands bound, with about $3,000 in cash and checks missing, according to court documents in the case. A jury sentenced Rhines to death for the killing in January 1993, four days after convicting him.
In an application for a stay filed on Friday, Rhines’ lawyers asked for a court review of evidence that some jurors knew Rhines was gay and believed he would enjoy life in prison with other men if he were spared the death penalty.
The petition, which cited statements by three jurors acknowledging that Rhines’ sexual orientation was an issue for that reason during sentencing deliberations, was denied by the high court without comment.
“It is very sad and profoundly unjust that the state of South Dakota today executed Charles Rhines, a gay man, without any court ever hearing the evidence of gay bias that infected the jury’s decision to sentence him to death,” federal public defender Shawn Nolan said in a statement.
Separately, defense lawyers filed a petition seeking a court order compelling the state to allow medical experts to examine Rhines for evidence of mental illness, such as autism, that might have served as a mitigating factor in his sentencing.
Appellate lawyers also sought to stay the execution while the high court considered Rhines’ request to be put to death by means of a lethal-injection protocol no longer used by South Dakota.
Those two petitions were likewise denied.
Rhines became only the fifth South Dakota inmate put to death since the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the constitutionally of the capital punishment in 1976. He was one of only three inmates on the state’s death row.
Source: Reuters, Steve Gorman, November 4, 2019
Anti-gay prejudice may have driven jurors to sentence a man to death
With Justice Kennedy off the Supreme Court, both gay rights plaintiffs and death row inmates face a bleak future.
Twenty-seven years ago, Charles Rhines committed a terrible crime. In 1992, a man caught him burglarizing a South Dakota doughnut shop, and Rhines stabbed him to death. He later confessed to the murder and was sentenced to death — and he is scheduled to be executed by South Dakota authorities on Monday afternoon.
As horrific as his crime was, the circumstances surrounding Rhines’s sentencing are troubling. There is evidence — including multiple statements by the jurors who sentenced him to death — indicating that he was not given a death sentence solely because of his crime. Rather, it is likely that Rhines was sentenced to die because he is gay.
During Rhines’s trial, while jurors were deliberating whether to give Rhines a life sentence or death, the jury sent the judge several questions that seemed designed to probe whether Rhines would have the opportunity to have sex with men while he was incarcerated. According to Rhines’s lawyers, the jurors asked “whether his jailers would allow him to ‘mix with the general inmate population,’ ‘create a group of followers or admirers,’ ‘discuss, describe or brag about his crime to other inmates, especially new and or young men jailed for lesser crimes ...’ ‘marry or have conjugal visits,’ or ‘be jailed alone or .... have a cellmate.’”
After the trial, several members of the jury came forward and admitted that Rhines’s sexual orientation played a significant role in their deliberations. One said that the jury knew that “he was a homosexual and thought that he shouldn’t be able to spend his life with men in prison.” Another recalled a fellow juror’s statement that “if he’s gay, we’d be sending him where he wants to go if we voted for” life imprisonment. A third juror recalled “lots of discussion of homosexuality. There was a lot of disgust.”
There is no question that Rhines’s crime was terrible. So it’s entirely possible that, were he given a new sentencing hearing, he would ultimately be resentenced to death by a jury that didn’t hold anti-gay views. But the evidence suggests that Rhines’s jury was motivated by a combination of anti-gay animus and an apparent belief that a men’s prison would be a kind of sexual prowling grounds for a gay inmate.
Rhines’s fate, moreover, was likely sealed last April, when the Supreme Court turned aside a petition raising the evidence that jurors were motivated by Rhines’s sexual orientation. That decision not to hear the case came a little less than a year after Justice Anthony Kennedy, who often voted with his liberal colleagues in gay rights cases and in death penalty decisions, left the Court to be replaced by the conservative stalwart Brett Kavanaugh.
So, while Rhines is not an especially sympathetic individual, his execution likely represents a new age in American law. Parties alleging that the Constitution restricts anti-gay animus can no longer expect to find relief in court, and death row inmates will have far less recourse to the Constitution.
"The death penalty is reserved for the most severe offenses" — for now
“When the law punishes by death,” Kennedy wrote for the Court in Kennedy v. Louisiana (2008), “it risks its own sudden descent into brutality, transgressing the constitutional commitment to decency and restraint.” For this reason, Kennedy wrote in an earlier opinion, “capital punishment must be limited to those offenders who commit ‘a narrow category of the most serious crimes’ and whose extreme culpability makes them ‘the most deserving of execution.’”
It is far from clear that these warnings against the overzealous use of the death penalty will survive Kennedy’s retirement. Last April, in one of the Supreme Court’s first major death penalty decisions since Kennedy stepped down, the Court’s new majority seemed to walk back decades of decisions interpreting the Eighth Amendment’s ban on “cruel and unusual punishments.”
“Death was ‘the standard penalty for all serious crimes’ at the time of the founding,” Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote for that new majority in
Bucklew v. Precythe (2019).
Bucklew, moreover, strongly implies that the proper question that courts should ask in an Eighth Amendment case is whether a particular punishment would have been considered cruel and unusual “by the time of the founding.” Bucklew, in other words, suggests that the Court may be prepared to expand the universe of crimes that can result in a death sentence.
At least for the moment, however, the Court has not overruled cases like Kennedy, which reserves executions to the most heinous crimes. Current law, moreover, requires trial courts to conduct a two-stage process whenever a defendant may be killed by the state.
In the first stage, often referred to as the “guilt” phase of the trial, the jury determines whether the defendant committed the crime they are accused of committing. Rhines was convicted of murder during this phase of his trial, and there’s little reason to doubt the soundness of that conviction, given his confession.
The second stage, often referred to as the “penalty” phase, is when the jury decides whether a death sentence is appropriate. This phase, as Justice Potter Stewart explained in the 1976 case endorsing this two-stage framework, focuses “the jury’s attention on the particularized nature of the crime and the particularized characteristics of the individual defendant.” Prosecutors typically present evidence that the individual is particularly depraved or the crime was particularly heinous, while defense attorneys will point to factors that mitigate the seriousness of the crime or suggest that the defendant deserves mercy.
There are very serious doubts about whether this process eliminates arbitrariness and prejudice from death sentences. Data suggest that people of color are more likely to be executed than white offenders, and that executions are more common when the victim is white. (Rhines and his victim are both white.)
Yet, as a matter of raw numbers, existing safeguards do tend to restrict the death penalty to just a handful of individuals. In 2017, there were more than 17,000 homicide crimes in the United States. Yet only 39 people were sentenced to die.
Existing law, in other words, recognizes that death sentences should be rare and should be reserved for the very worst offenders. Perhaps a jury could have concluded that Rhines’s crime cleared this high bar. But that inquiry should have focused on the nature of Rhines’s crime and any indications that he is a particularly remorseless offender. It should not have focused on Rhines’ sexual orientation.
Anthony Kennedy’s unfinished gay rights revolution
If the Supreme Court, with its current very conservative majority, had taken Rhines’s case, they could have used it as a vehicle to roll back existing rights for victims of anti-LGBTQ discrimination. At the very least, the Court’s Republican majority would not have had much trouble ruling against Rhines because existing doctrine does not shield against all forms of anti-LGBTQ discrimination by the government.
Though Justice Kennedy was a conservative Reagan appointee who typically voted with his Republican colleagues, his views on gay rights were fairly moderate. Over the course of nearly two decades, Kennedy authored a series of decisions striking down some forms of government discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. After Justice Sandra Day O’Connor left the Court in 2006, these decisions typically split the Court 5-4, with Kennedy joined by his four liberal colleagues.
Yet, while Kennedy frequently supported gay rights, he did so very slowly, typically handing fairly narrow victories to victims of anti-gay discrimination, then letting these victims wait years for the next incremental step towards equality. (Notably, Kennedy’s very short record on transgender rights suggests that he was far less sympathetic to plaintiffs alleging discrimination on the basis of gender identity than he was to plaintiffs in sexual orientation cases.)
His first major gay rights decision in Romer v. Evans (1996), for example, merely held that the government cannot enact laws solely because of its “desire to harm a politically unpopular group.” The Court didn’t hold that adults cannot be prosecuted for consensual sexual activity, including same-sex activity, until seven years later in Lawrence v. Texas (2003).
By the time Kennedy got around to marriage equality, he doled out the right to marry partners of the same sex out in two stages. Kennedy’s first marriage equality decision, in United States v. Windsor (2013), only held that the federal government could not deny equal rights to couples who legally married under the marriage laws in their state. Same-sex couples did not gain full marriage rights in all 50 states until two years later in Obergefell v. Hodges (2015).
And, even then, Kennedy was stingy. Broadly speaking, there are two ways Kennedy could have reached his marriage equality decision in Obergefell. He could have written a broad decision holding that any governmental discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is constitutionally dubious. Or he could have written a narrow decision holding that the Constitution protects a fundamental right to marry, and that specific right cannot be denied to same-sex couples.
Though Obergefell hinted that a broad decision would come later, Kennedy never held that discrimination based on sexual orientation is inherently dubious. Instead, he opted for the narrower option in Obergefell — and then he left the Court three years later. The result is that Kennedy’s gay rights revolution is a revolution interrupted. Kennedy never got around to a decision holding that the Constitution casts a skeptical eye on all discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.
With Kennedy gone, that decision may not come for a very long time.
Source:
VOX, Ian Millhiser, November 4, 2019
Scheduled Execution Of South Dakota Inmate
Protesters gathered outside the South Dakota State Penitentiary in Sioux Falls - about 30 people prayed and sang hymns in the hour leading up to the scheduled 1:30 pm execution of Charles Russell Rhines. Dennis Davis is the director of South Dakotans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, he says he spoke with Rhines this week. He says Rhines was nervous but has fought for his life as long as he can. Davis wonders what message this execution is sending.
“It seems like they want to clean off, clean out death row, which is legal. So, killing is illegal in anywhere in the United States—most places in the world—unless it’s done by the state or the country and for some reason, they call that ‘death’ legal. That’s never made much sense to me. Why would we want to kill someone who has killed to say that killing is wrong and what does this say to our children? It’s teaching them something,” says Davis.
Davis says while he accepts the execution, he wants to shift the culture away from the death penalty. He says for a conservative state it’s more cost effective to sentence someone to life without parole. Rhines has appeared in court 16 times with appeals over the last 26 years. His final three appeals were before the US Supreme Court and delayed the scheduled execution for about six hours. The court denied the requests for a stay of execution.
Inside the prison Charles Rhines wore an orange prison issued short sleeved t-shirt. He was lying on a table and his arms and legs were strapped down. He was covered with a white sheet up to his chest. He wore his glasses.
Jack Caudill is with KEVN in Rapid City and served as a media witness. He says Rhines’ speech was calm when asked if he had any last words.
"He said yes I do. He said Ed and Peggy Schaeffer I forgive you for your anger and hatred you have towards me. I pray to God that he forgives you for your anger and hatred towards me. Thanks to my team, I love you all, goodbye, let’s go." says Caudill.
An IV was started in his right arm and left hand.
Arielle Zionts is a reporter with the Rapid City Journal and also served as a media witness.
"It looks like he intentionally closed his eyes and did some normal blinking and then he started to frequently blink and then he said something that sounded like sis. It definitely was a one syllable word that sounded like sis. At first, he was looking up because that’s where the mic was and then he turned his head to the right which was away from us and his arm was out to the left and we couldn’t see his face," says Zionts. "He did a big deep audible breath, and there was some more labored breathing and then it got gentle and that was by 7:33 and so within a minute all of that breathing was done. By 7:38, I would say he was already pretty pale, but I would say the color in his face became pretty clammy kind of greyish whitish blueish."
Charles Rhines was pronounced dead at 7:39 pm. Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg says justice was served. He did not want to talk about Charles Rhines.
"Today I would like to remember Donnivan Schaeffer, the victim who was brutally murdered by the killer who just met justice. Donnivan was an intelligent man set to graduate from western Dakota tech. Donnivan was an award winning archer, who loved hunting and fishing. Donnivan was funny, kind and a hard worker," says Ravnsborg.
Ravnsborg says if Donnivan was alive he would be about to celebrate his 50th birthday. Instead Donnivan Schaeffer is known as the 22 year old donut shop employee who surprised Charles Rhines during a burglary and was stabbed multiple times.
Donnivan’s mother says she forgave Charles Rhines a long time ago. She says that’s the only way she could move on after her son’s death. She says she’s angry about the crime but is not full of anger and hatred toward Rhines. She wants instead to honor her son.
"The man who touched many lives without even knowing it. Today do something kind in honor because life is just too short, and this world needs more love and kindness. Remember him today. Talk about Donnivan. He is missed, he is loved, and he will never be forgotten," says Schaeffer.
Peggy and Ed Schaeffer believe justice was done and thanked law enforcement and state lawyers for working hard on behalf of their family. Donnivan’s fiancé Sheila Pond Jackson told reporters Donnivan believed in an “eye for an eye” and that justice was served for Donnivan.
No one spoke from Charles Rhines’ family. He was the fifth inmate to be executed since 2007. One inmate remains on South Dakota’s death row. Briley Piper has an appeal before the South Dakota Supreme Court.
Source:
listen.sdpb.org, John Nguyen, November 5, 2019
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"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde
