Was a Man Sentenced to Death for Being Gay?
By SARAH TOCE AUGUST 2, 201812:32 PM
Six civil rights organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union, American Civil Liberties Union of South Dakota, Lambda Legal, GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders, National Center for Lesbian Rights, and National LGBT Bar Association, filed an amici brief Thursday urging the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals to hear the appeal of Charles Rhines, a gay man on death row in South Dakota.
According to the filing, new evidence “suggests that at least some members of the jury accepted the notion that life in prison without parole would be fun for a gay person - so much so that they felt it was necessary to impose the death penalty instead. In other words, significant evidence suggests that the jury may have sentenced Mr. Rhines to death based not on the facts of his case, but because he is gay.”
“Mr. Rhines’s case represents one of the most extreme forms anti-LGBT bias can take. Evidence suggests that he has been on death row for the past 25 years because he is a gay man. The constitutional right to a fair trial must include the right to establish whether a verdict or sentence was imposed due to jury bias,” said Lambda Legal Fair Courts Project Attorney Ethan Rice. “Lambda Legal is proud to work with the ACLU, the ACLU of South Dakota, GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders, National Center for Lesbian Rights, and the National LGBT Bar Association to provide important information to the Eighth Circuit on the history of bias against LGBT people and how that bias impacts LGBT rights in the criminal legal system.”
The amicus brief can be viewed here: https://tinyurl.com/y8eslggc.
Mr. Rhines’s Application for Certificate of Appealability can be viewed at https://tinyurl.com/y778msud and its exhibits at https://tinyurl.com/y8bz8jor.
During jury deliberations, the jury sent a note to the judge that indicated that Mr. Rhines’s status as a gay man had become a focal point for deliberations. The note asked whether, if sentenced to life without parole, Mr. 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 asked other questions about Mr. Rhines’s access to other men while in prison. (Application at p. 6.)
The new evidence comes in the form of three statements from jurors who served at Mr. Rhines’s capital trial and sentencing. One juror stated that the jury “knew that [Mr. Rhines] was a homosexual and thought that he shouldn’t be able to spend his life with men in prison.” Another juror recalled a juror commenting that “if he’s gay we’d be sending him where he wants to go if we voted for [life without parole].” A third juror confirmed that “[t]here was lots of discussion of homosexuality. There was a lot of disgust.” (Application at p. 8.) (See also Amici brief at p. 1). The new evidence confirms what the jury’s note strongly indicated at the time of Mr. Rhines’s sentencing: anti-gay bias played a role in some jurors’ decisions to impose the death penalty on Mr. Rhines.
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https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/2018/08/was-a-man-sentenced-to-death-for-being-gay/
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