Tison v. Arizona

The Case: U.S. Supreme Court ruling on capital punishment

Date: Decided on April 21, 1987

Significance: In this case, the Supreme Court created a flexible standard for applying the death penalty to felony-murder accomplices who demonstrate reckless disregard for human life even though they do not directly participate in killing a victim.

On July 30, 1978, brothers Donny, age twenty-one, Ricky, age twenty, and Raymond Tison, age nineteen, smuggled guns into the Arizona State Prison and helped in the escape of their father, Gary, who was a convicted murderer, and another convicted murderer. The group changed cars and made their escape on a desert highway. When they had a flat tire, they flagged down a passing car containing young parents, a baby, and a teenage cousin and held the family at gunpoint. Gary Tison ordered his sons to load their possessions into the young family’s car. As the brothers loaded the car and pushed their own disabled car into the desert, their father and the other prison escapee brutally murdered the entire family, including the baby, with shotgun blasts at close range.

The escaping group traveled for several more days before encountering a police roadblock. During the ensuing shoot-out, Donny was killed, Gary escaped into the desert but soon died from exposure, and Ricky, Raymond, and the other convict were captured.

As accomplices to the killing of the young family, Ricky and Raymond Tison were charged with felony murder. When they were sentenced to death, they appealed their sentences based on a Supreme Court decision (Enmund v. Florida, 1982) which had declared that felony-murder accomplices cannot be sentenced to death if they do not directly participate in the actual killing. After the Arizona Supreme Court upheld the sentences, the Tisons took their case to the U.S. Supreme Court.

In a 5-4 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court created a flexible standard for imposing the death penalty. The Court declared that felony-murder accomplices could receive the death penalty if they demonstrated “reckless disregard for human life,” even if they did not directly participate in the killing. The justices used this new standard to uphold the capital sentences imposed on the Tisons because they viewed the brothers’ active involvement in supplying weapons to convicted murderers and kidnapping the young family as a demonstration of “reckless disregard.”

In Tison v. Arizona the Supreme Court gave state prosecutors greater flexibility to seek the death penalty against accomplices who participate in crimes that result in homicides. This new flexibility came at the price of greater inconsistency in the application of capital punishment. Under the prior rule, it was relatively clear which offenders were eligible for the death penalty, based on their direct participation in a killing. By contrast, under the Tison rule, jurors and judges applying the vague “reckless indifference” standard have broad opportunities to impose capital punishment based on their negative feelings toward the accomplice or their revulsion at the crime without precise consideration of the defendant’s actual participation.

Bibliography

Banner, Stuart. The Death Penalty: An American History. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2002.

Bedau, Hugo Adam, and Paul Cassell. Debating the Death Penalty: Should America Have Capital Punishment? The Experts on Both Sides Make Their Best Case. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 2003.

Bohm, Robert M. Deathquest: An Introduction to the Theory and Practice of Capital Punishment in the United States. Cincinnati: Anderson Publishing, 2003.

Latzer, Barry, ed. Death Penalty Cases: Leading U.S. Supreme Court Cases on Capital Punishment. 2d ed. Boston: Butterworth-Heinemann, 2002.