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''Whitmove v. Arkansas'', 495 U.S. 149 (1990), is a U.S. Supreme Court Case that held that the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments do not require mandatory appellate review of death penalty cases, and that individuals cannot file cases as next friend without prior relationship to the appellant. ==Background== Ronald Gene Simmons was convicted of the mass murder of sixteen people and sentenced to death. Arkansas state law did not require appellate review of capital sentences, and Simmons chose to contest neither the conviction nor the sentence, in fact, requesting a speedy execution: "I, Ronald Gene Simmons, Sr., want it to be known that it is my wish and my desire that absolutely no action by anybody be taken to appeal or in any way change this sentence. It is further respectfully requested that this sentence be carried out expeditiously." Arkansas state law allowed the waiving of capital appeals so long as a separate hearing determined the competence of the condemned man. Simmons' competence verified and his execution was to proceed when a fellow death row inmate, Jonas Whitmore, filed suit against the state of Arkansas both for himself and on the behalf of Simmons. Whitmore had been sent to Arkansas' death row in 1989 for stabbing to death a 62-year-old woman and robbing her of $250 after she had let him into her home and fed him milk and cookies. Whitmore had exhausted his direct line of appeals within the state was about to pursue a ''habeas'' claim in federal court. Whitmore wanted to see Simmons' case appealed within Arkansas because he believed that if his ''habeas'' plea in the federal courts was successful and he was granted a new trial in which he was convicted anew, during sentencing review, his single murder would look far less worse than Simmons' massacre of sixteen. Whitmore's attempt to force Simmons's case into appeal was three-pronged, arguing that: *He suffered injury by Simmons' lack of appeal and therefore the absence of Simmons' murder being considered during comparative review. *Lack of appellate review violated the constitution's protections against cruel and unusual punishment and due process *Whitmore also filed as next friend to Simmons, trying to force, in Simmons' name, the appeal that Simmons himself refused. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Whitmore v. Arkansas」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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