Schick v. Reed

Petitioner
Maurice Schick
Respondent
George J. Reed
Petitioner's Claim
That President Eisenhower's decision to commute Schick's death sentence on the condition that he never be granted parole was unconstitutional.
Chief Lawyer for Peitioner
Homer E. Moyer, Jr.
Chief Lawyer for Respondent
Louis F. Claiborne
Justices for the Court
Harry A. Blackmun, Warren E. Burger (writing for the Court), Lewis F. Powell,Jr., William H. Rehnquist, Potter Stewart, Byron R. White
Justices Dissenting
William J. Brennan, Jr., William O. Douglas, Thurgood Marshall
Place
Washington, D.C.
Date of Decision
23 December 1974
Decision
Eisenhower's no-parole condition did not violate the Constitution.
Significance
In Schick v. Reed, the Supreme Court ruled that limits to the president's power to pardon can be set only by constitutional amendment.
In 1954, Maurice Schick, a master sergeant in the United States Army stationed in Japan, was tried before a court-martial for the murder of an eight-year-old girl. He admitted to the killing, but contended that he was insane at thetime that he committed it. After a board of psychiatrists concluded that Schick was suffering from a nonpsychotic behavioral disorder and was mentally aware of and able to control his actions, the court-martial rejected Schick's defense and he was sentenced to death on 27 March 1954. In 1960, President Dwight D. Eisenhower, acting under authority granted by the Constitution, commuted Schick's sentence from death to life imprisonment, on the condition that he would never be eligible for parole.
Had Schick originally received a sentence of life imprisonment, he would havebeen eligible for parole consideration in March of 1969. Two years after that date, having served 17 years of his sentence, Schick filed suit in the U.S.District Court for the District of Columbia to require the United States Board of Parole to consider him for parole. The chairman of the United States Board of Parole, George J. Reed, asked the U.S. District Court for a summary judgment in the government's favor.
The Lower Court Rulings
The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia granted Reed's motion for a summary judgment. The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia affirmed this decision. In doing so, the courts upheld the power of a president togrant commutations and pardons with conditions attached. The court of appeals also rejected Schick's argument that the 1972 Furman v. Georgia decision--which commuted all pending death sentences to life in prison--meant heshould have been eligible for parole.
The Supreme Court Ruling
On 23 December 1974 the Supreme Court issued its decision. By a vote of 6-3,it affirmed the ruling of the court of appeals. Chief Justice Burger wrote the majority opinion, in which he was joined by Justices White, Stewart, Blackmun, Powell, and Rehnquist. Justice Marshall wrote a dissenting opinion, in which he was joined by Justices Douglas and Brennan. The majority's decision rested on three points.
The President Can Commute With Conditions
In his majority opinion, Chief Justice Burger held that the president has thepower to attach conditions when he commutes the sentence of a convicted person. He based this determination on previous cases that had been before the Court, and on his understanding of the history of an executive's power to pardon:

[T]his Court has long read the Constitution as authorizing thePresident to deal with individual cases by granting conditional pardons. Thevery essence of the pardoning power is to treat each case individually . . .Presidents throughout our history as a Nation have exercised the power to pardon or commute sentences upon conditions that are not specifically authorizedby statute . . . We therefore hold that the pardoning power is an enumeratedpower of the Constitution and that its limitations, if any, must be found inthe Constitution itself.

No Parole Condition Held To Be Constitutional
Schick had argued that a condition denying him parole was itself unconstitutional. Chief Justice Burger dismissed this argument out of hand:

The no-parole condition attached to the commutation of his death sentence is similar to sanctions imposed by legislatures such as mandatory minimum sentences or statutes otherwise precluding parole; it does not offend the Constitution.

Furman v. Georgia Did Not Apply
Schick's most inventive argument concerned Furman v. Georgia, the 1972Supreme Court decision that struck down 39 state capital punishment laws asunconstitutional. Following that decision, all pending death sentences were automatically commuted to simple life imprisonment--with parole eligibility. Schick claimed that his "death sentence"--as commuted by President Eisenhower--should have reverted to this sentence as well. Chief Justice Burger was notpersuaded:

It is correct that pending death sentences not carriedout prior to Furman were thereby set aside without conditions such aswere attached to petitioner's commutation. However, petitioner's death sentence was not pending in 1972 because it had long since been commuted.

The dissenters, led by Justice Marshall, did not disagree with Chief JusticeBurger's determination that the president had the right to grant a conditional commutation of sentence. However, they strongly disagreed on the other twopoints, claiming that the Furman decision required the substitution ofa simple life sentence, and that the no-parole condition was "extra legal" and thus not within the scope of the president's powers.
Related Cases

• Ex parte Grossman, 267 U.S. 87 (1925).
  
• Grosjean v. American Press Co., 297 U.S. 233 (1936).
  
• Trop v. Dulles, 356 U.S. 86 (1958).
  
• Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238 (1972).

Presidential Pardoning Power
One month after Gerald Ford became president following the resignation of hissuccessor, Richard Nixon in August of 1974, he pardoned Nixon of any wrongdoing associated with the Watergate scandal. Many criticized Ford's actions, and some have blamed his defeat by Democratic candidate Jimmy Carter in the 1976 elections on widespread antipathy regarding his pardon of Nixon.
Should the president even be allowed to make pardons? Viewed from one angle,the idea smacks of autocracy. On the other hand, the presidential pardon makes sense in instances where prejudice or other factors have interfered with the handing down of a just verdict. Many intellectuals in the 1920s believed that Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti had been falsely accused of murder onthe basis of their anarchist beliefs rather than the evidence, and called for a presidential pardon. The pardon for Sacco and Vanzetti never came, however. As for Nixon's pardon, the nation had already been through a prolonged series of investigations and hearings related to Watergate, and the American people were ready to move on.