Jason Getsy was sentenced to death for his participation in a murder-for-hire. Getsy filed a federal habeas petition challenging his death sentence on various grounds, including the fact that John Santine, the man who hired Getsy, only received a life sentence. Though indicted jointly, Getsy and Santine were tried separately. The jury in Getsy’s case found him guilty of the murder-for-hire capital specification, but the jury in Santine’s case did not reach the same conclusion. This inconsistency in the two separate jury verdicts, Getsy argued, rendered his death sentence unconstitutonal. In August 2006, a divided panel of the Sixth Circuit agreed. Today, however, the entire court, sitting en banc, rejected Getsy’s claim, 8-6. [The en banc court also rejected Getsy’s other habeas claims, including allegations of judicial bias and ineffective assistance of counsel at sentencing.]
Judge Gilman, who dissented from the initial panel decision, wrote the majority opinion rejecting Getsy’s claims. As Gilman summarized:
At oral argument, Getsy