The Supreme Court has agreed to decide whether some convicted killers facing the death penalty in South Carolina still have the right to tell jurors there is no chance they could be paroled if sentenced to life in prison. The High Court also agreed to decide whether some prison inmates have a constitutional right to give legal advice to fellow inmates.
In the South Carolina case, the justices said they will review a ruling by the state's highest court that such instructions no longer are needed when murderers are sentenced in that state.
In a 1994 decision, the nation's highest court struck down a South Carolina law that barred jurors, many of whom might think a `life sentence'' does not really mean a lifetime behind bars, from learning that parole was impossible for some defendants.
Not allowing such instructions violate defendants' due-process rights, the justices ruled back then. The state Legislature amended the capital sentencing law in 1995 to include three options for juries: Impose death, life in prison without possibility of parole or - if finding no aggravating factors - a minimum prison sentence of 30 years.
The South Carolina Supreme Court said last May that the new sentencing scheme makes the 1994 ruling no longer applicable. After deliberating for more than three hours, the sentencing jury asked the presiding judge whether there was ”any remote chance” that Shafer might be eligible for parole. The judge told the jurors that “parole eligibility or ineligibility is not for your consideration.” Earlier the judge had told the jury: “In deciding whether to sentence the defendant to death or life imprisonment, I remind you that death means just what it says, death. Life imprisonment means incarceration of the defendant until his death.''

In the case regarding legal advice to prison inmates, the justices said they will use a Montana case to decide whether prison officials ever violate inmates' free-speech rights when they censor such communications.
A federal appeals court ruled that Montana authorities wrongly disciplined an inmate over a letter in which he offered legal advice to another inmate.
Other federal appeals courts have ruled that no such free-speech right exists.
Kevin Murphy, an inmate at the Montana State Prison, was trained by prison officials as a legal clerk authorized to help other inmates. In early 1995, Murphy wrote to a fellow inmate who had requested his assistance after being charged with assaulting a correctional officer.
Prison rules, however, did not allow Murphy to offer such assistance because that inmate was in the maximum-security unit. In the letter, Murphy proposed some legal strategies and also offered disparaging remarks about the officer who allegedly had been assaulted.
A prison official read and confiscated the letter, which never reached the second inmate. Murphy was disciplined for violating prison rules. Murphy said they should not be able to censor his letter.
He appealed the disciplinary measures taken against him, but state officials and a federal trial judge upheld them. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals threw out the trial judge's ruling and said Murphy's rights had been violated.
The appeals court said Murphy should win his case ``because the provision of legal assistance to fellow inmates is an activity protected by the First Amendment, and because the prison regulations challenged here are an exaggerated response to otherwise legitimate security concerns.''