Prof. Elizabeth Bentley Quoted by Arizona Republic on Cruz v. Arizona Ruling

Professor Elizabeth Bentley was quoted by Arizona Republic regarding the U.S. Supreme Court case Cruz v. Arizona, in which the Civil Rights Appellate Clinic filed an amicus brief last summer in support of Petitioner John Cruz. In an opinion by Justice Sotomayor, the Court ruled yesterday in favor of Cruz and adopted arguments advanced by the Arizona Capital Representation Project that the Arizona Supreme Court's decisions denying relief to capital defendants like Cruz were contradictory and left Cruz in an impossible situation without any avenue to assert his due process right to inform the jury of parole ineligibility. Reflecting on the significance of the ruling, “I think the big takeaway is that for any individual who has been sentenced to death, who didn’t have the opportunity to tell the jury that they were parole ineligible, should have the opportunity now to assert that claim and have the opportunity for resentencing in accordance with their due process rights.”