The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals on
Friday declined to review a case involving a gay man who may have
been sentenced to death rather than life in prison because of his
sexual orientation.
Charles Rhines is on death row in South
Dakota for the 1992 murder of an employee in the course of a
commercial burglary. Rhines stabbed the 22-year-old employee to
death after he caught him burglarizing a doughnut shop in Rapid City.
Six civil rights organizations – the
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), ACLU of South Dakota, Lambda
Legal, GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders (GLAD), National Center
for Lesbian Rights (NCLR), and National LGBT Bar Association – had
urged the Eighth Circuit to hear an appeal in the case, arguing that
compelling new evidence showed that some jurors were motivated by
anti-gay bias.
The three-judge panel voted 2-1 not to
review the case.
“Plaintiff-Appellant Charles Russell
Rhines has offered evidence that some of the jurors who voted to
impose the death penalty on him in 1993 may have done so based on the
pernicious stereotype that the alternative – a life sentence served
in a men's prison – was something he would enjoy as a gay man,”
the groups wrote in an amicus brief.
The jury sent a note to the judge
asking whether, if sentenced to life without parole, Rhines would “be
allowed to mix with the general inmate population,” be able to
“brag about his crime to other inmates, especially new and/or young
men,” enjoy “conjugal visits,” and whether he would “have a
cellmate.”
The new evidence is statements made by
jurors. One juror said that the jury “knew that [Rhines] was a
homosexual and thought that he shouldn't be able to spend his life
with men in prison.” Another juror said that there was “lots of
discussion of homosexuality” during deliberations. A third juror
recalled a juror saying that prison is “where [Rhines] wants to
go.”
Rhines' attorney, Shawn Nolan, said in
a statement that “anti-gay stereotypes and animus should have no
role in our criminal justice system and certainly should never be a
reason to impose a death sentence.”
“We express our appreciation to the
six civil rights organizations … who filed a friend-of-the-court
brief with the Eighth Circuit. The amici brief provided critical
information about the long and painful history of discrimination
against lesbian, gay, and bisexual people in the United States, which
created the context in which Mr. Rhines received a death sentence and
persists in the current day,” he added.