The United States Supreme Court heard oral arguments Tuesday in the case of John Montenegro Cruz, a man sentenced to death for the 2003 fatal shooting of Patrick Hardesty, a Tucson police officer.
Cruz, who was attempting to evade arrest, shot the officer five times at close range.
He was convicted and sentenced to death in 2005. Cruz's attorneys argued he was not able to tell the jury that he would not be eligible for parole if given a life sentence, which he believes could have persuaded them from issuing a death sentence.
During arguments that lasted just over an hour, the state asked the Court to uphold the death penalty for Cruz, arguing the ruling was consistent with other Arizona cases addressing the same issue.
“Identifying and supporting the true victims of crime is essential to the administration of justice,” said Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich. “In this case, a police officer was murdered, and his family and community should not have to endure endless attempts by the perpetrator to avoid responsibility for his heinous crime.”
The attorney general’s office said Chief Deputy Joseph Kanefield argued the case in front of the Supreme Court on Tuesday.
The 1994 Supreme Court Case Simmons v. South Carolina established that defendants whose dangerousness is called into question have a right to tell the jury that they would never be released on parole. In a subsequent case in 2016, Lynch v. Arizona, the Supreme Court directly told Arizona they must honor the right provided by Simmons.
Elizabeth Bentley, a professor at the University of Minnesota Law School, represented the Arizona Capital Representation Project, which submitted an amicus brief in support of Cruz.
“We argued that the state of Arizona and Arizona courts have created all of these procedural hurdles to prevent individuals like Cruz from being able to raise his due process challenge,” Bentley said.
That brief was referenced by Justice Sonia Sotomayor on Tuesday.
Lourdes M. Rosado is president and general counsel for LatinoJustice PRLDEF, which also filed an amicus brief in the case. She said the Supreme Court will decide “whether Arizona can use a procedural shortcut to execute a man after a trial that everyone now admits was unconstitutional at the time.”
“LatinoJustice was proud to join with The Legal Defense Fund (LDF) in an amicus brief that explain the long history of racial bias in the death penalty,” Rosado said, “and how constitutional protections are all the more crucial for those who have long been discriminated by the criminal legal system.”
The case now awaits a ruling from the court.
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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
