Nikko A. Jenkins v. Nebraska

Severely mentally ill since the age of eight, Nikko Jenkins was imprisoned in Nebraska for armed robbery at age seventeen. He was held in solitary confinement for nearly five years—including for more than two years immediately preceding his release. He exhibited severe mental illness and selfmutilation in solitary confinement, and repeatedly sought assistance, including requests that he be civilly committed as a danger to others rather than released. The State ignored his pleas, and released him directly from solitary confinement to the community, without any assistance or transition. Within three weeks of release, he killed four people. He was subsequently convicted and sentenced to death, under a Nebraska law that authorizes a panel of judges, rather than a jury, to make factual findings necessary to impose a sentence of death. The questions presented are:

1. Whether the sentencing court violated the requirement of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendment that capital sentencers give meaningful consideration and effect to all mitigating evidence, when it categorically refused to consider the impact of prolonged solitary confinement and the State’s inadequate response, because it concluded that the solitary confinement was warranted.

2. Whether a capital sentencing scheme that requires a jury to find aggravating factors, but authorizes judges, rather than a jury, to make all further factual findings necessary to the imposition of a sentence of death, violates the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution.